The Stone House

6.

I lay with my wife in our bed, finally I had managed to coax her silent form up the stairs. The sun had long set but the moon was full in the sky and awake as she was. She was not sleeping and with the light coming through our window, I could see the curves of her face. The shine of her eyes. Mouth budded like a prairie rose, nose long and straight. She had never left Saskatchewan, but I had always felt that her features had been cherry-picked from all of the finest from across the world.

I tried to take her hand she took hold of mine and squeezed it back. She rolled to face me, placing her long fingers onto the side of my face.

"Sleep." She said. She kissed me full on the mouth, and brushed my eyes close, her fingers tenderly playing with my hair.

But she had spoken at least. The cocoon had finally cracked. A wave of relief and love washed over me.

We could rebuild.

I was in that semi-sleep a few hours later when I reached over, to find her gone.

For a moment, I didn't know what had woke me.

Then I heard it.

Chuchum chuchum chuchhum. The deep metallic drum of the approaching train.

I tore off the sheet and bolted to my window.

Chuchum-chuchum-chuchum

In the night, lit by the moon was my wife standing on the tracks.

Chuckum-chuckum-chuckum

The train was already coming through our land. Tearing across it at speed.

I watched my wife crouch and wipe her face before closing her arms around thin air, resting her head on nothing just seconds before the train hit her.