For Older Stories

Erasures and Superimpositions

He was done for; tired and all, lying on his deathbed. She knocked on the door, welcomed herself in, and sat right beside him. Still hours away yet the silence between them was like one between two strangers -- never speaking, only feeling each other's space.

He stared at her aged beauty. She was wondrously weathered by time, he thought as he savored every detail of her. He would need it after all. She was being polite, her eyes transfixed on his hand, her mouth neither opening for air nor sound. Not here is where she wanted to be and her eyes betrayed her and it was his last read.

He was minutes away, thinking "Maybe just a kiss from her, the only lady I genuinely loved, and the woman I could never have is enough for a keepsake."

She may never know. No regrets.

He smiles at her. She's still being polite while she fades to black.