Stand Still
by Shannon M Murphy

She sat, windswept and inarguably defiant.

He paced the room. Floorboards protesting in anguish the silent refuge of his desperation.

Tea cup rattles. Steam pours open, betrays her face. Tears run down the porcelain rim.

Hands etched in stone. He will not budge.

I remember she smiled then. Plucked the apple from the tree and I dove in, curiously unsatiated. Papery nectar of the gods, snaking its way in my veins as cigarette smoke dashed through the air. We held hands, for a moment together in our loss.

He did not know we were there.

Overnightly aged eyes that spoke of years lost in bodily routines, burning for the fresh terror eloped only in my skin. I knew she would always be there, sitting, waiting for me.

Feet pound the angry wood, searching for an ear to pause and give suck to the violence birthed inside him. No one will come.

If you hold your breathe long enough, fate will take over and lead your will away. I always wondered where it is we all go. When we die.

Ransomed silence shrieks back at his stares. I do not think he ever will know a real touch. Always one breath away from his consumption. Alone in reflection, tripping over the life flow massed around him, marveling at the rock.

She sighed then, all the lost words escaping on one last wish-swept ship, the calm before the storm. We both knew what would happen next, what was happening now. If time could stand still.

He sat down and cried. Tears soothing the acrid hunger of eyes.

Fingers entwined, then pulled apart as silken strings from beneath the child's dressing gown. I could see her walk away, layered clothing falling like so much bits of sickly skin, naked in my eyes because I could finally see. She was so beautiful to me then.

Somehow he heard our final lullaby, pulled through the cafe walls to sleep-estranged need, to soothe where it may.

One day I will go back. Mull over my own special pretense and wait for her repose, all-consuming amid the chaotic thrill of a mis-matched Manhattan night. I know exactly what she would say, and how. Lips pressed over mine as the velvet scarf draped round my neck, drinking my skin. She would have one final embrace.

And then he slept, the silent, calming sleep of a child first bathed in light. Safe in his mother's arms.

She will never leave my touch.