15 Minute Challenge: One Silver Ring
What does it mean, anyway? She asks.
When she stretches her hand over the descending shape of the moon, her fingertip covers it exactly. He shifts and shifts again, uncomfortably, so that he can look at her.
Her eyes are illuminated by the thin line of dawn creeping over the horizon, so clear, like staring into a porcelain bowl. Thoughts ripple through them like raindrops, every contemplative blink disturbing the otherwise peaceful surface.
He cranes his neck back to face the disappearing expanse of heavens above them. They'd been counting shooting stars all night. As he opens his mouth, another streaks across the sky.
Twenty-four, he says.
What does it mean, she echoes again.
She rotates her wrist, tracing the plain silver band all the way around. What does it mean to me or you or anyone.
He sits up onto his elbows and glances over again, alarmed now to see a shimmering shining something collecting in the corner of her eye.
It's too much, don't you think? She says softly, and bites her lip. She can't tear her eyes away from it. I feel like...it's the answer to a question I never meant to ask.
She covers her mouth and clenches her eyes shut. I want to marry you, I do, but...I'm so scared of everything, right now, and this...this...
He slides his hand into hers, making bridges with their fingers. She stills suddenly.
What does it mean, to you or me or anyone.
He slides the ring off of her finger and pauses to look at it.
Her eyes, too, betray her stillness and flicker open, some small terror hidden beneath her damp eyelashes.
He stares at it a moment longer before, with one smooth movement of his arm, he casts it down into the world below, where not even the tinest plink of sound betrays its location. There is a great stillness in the air, more calm than even their bodies then. He takes it all in with a great exhale.
It doesn't mean a thing, he says.
She sits up and throws her arms around him.
I still want to marry you, she says. I do, I do, I love you so...even if the ring was...
Meaningless, he says, kissing her forehead. A concrete symbol in an abstract world. Who needs it? I don't. Did you?
She chokes out a laugh.
I don't need anything but you.
28 March 2009
real faith, my dear, is just a dream
When she stretches her hand over the descending shape of the moon, her fingertip covers it exactly. He shifts and shifts again, uncomfortably, so that he can look at her.
Her eyes are illuminated by the thin line of dawn creeping over the horizon, so clear, like staring into a porcelain bowl. Thoughts ripple through them like raindrops, every contemplative blink disturbing the otherwise peaceful surface.
He cranes his neck back to face the disappearing expanse of heavens above them. They'd been counting shooting stars all night. As he opens his mouth, another streaks across the sky.
Twenty-four, he says.
What does it mean, she echoes again.
She rotates her wrist, tracing the plain silver band all the way around. What does it mean to me or you or anyone.
He sits up onto his elbows and glances over again, alarmed now to see a shimmering shining something collecting in the corner of her eye.
It's too much, don't you think? She says softly, and bites her lip. She can't tear her eyes away from it. I feel like...it's the answer to a question I never meant to ask.
She covers her mouth and clenches her eyes shut. I want to marry you, I do, but...I'm so scared of everything, right now, and this...this...
He slides his hand into hers, making bridges with their fingers. She stills suddenly.
What does it mean, to you or me or anyone.
He slides the ring off of her finger and pauses to look at it.
Her eyes, too, betray her stillness and flicker open, some small terror hidden beneath her damp eyelashes.
He stares at it a moment longer before, with one smooth movement of his arm, he casts it down into the world below, where not even the tinest plink of sound betrays its location. There is a great stillness in the air, more calm than even their bodies then. He takes it all in with a great exhale.
It doesn't mean a thing, he says.
She sits up and throws her arms around him.
I still want to marry you, she says. I do, I do, I love you so...even if the ring was...
Meaningless, he says, kissing her forehead. A concrete symbol in an abstract world. Who needs it? I don't. Did you?
She chokes out a laugh.
I don't need anything but you.
28 March 2009
real faith, my dear, is just a dream