Sky. Blue, but swelling with orange, almost golden, smearing. Like something wisened.
His head in the dry grass, his face reflecting the horizon. He is serene, but then his attention turns.
Her back is turned. Her hair moving in the light breeze. He thinks, will she notice him?
She does.
They walk in the field, maneuvering through the tall grass. Silently. This is okay, he thinks. It’s okay to be silent. And for awhile they are.
I’m not good with goodbyes, she says. Sometimes it’s better to just go.
Go? I’m glad you didn’t just go, he says, answering his own question.
Glad? Are you really glad?
He stops and let’s the words sink in, then retreats from the question.
Okay, maybe “glad’s” not the right word, then.
He walks away, but not too far.
What if, she says, as much to herself as to him…. What if there was a way to return?
Return?
Here. This place, carrying us. After all, places retain the sense of something having happened.
They do, he thinks. He asks, So what has happened?
She hears him but chooses not to answer. The words touching down like the earliest of autumn leaves. Premature, but inevitable.
The light is beautiful here, she says. The sky… and then stops.
He watches her, hanging back. Her hair moving in the light breeze. He captures that image, like a photograph, and keeps it. As if enshrined: the image, him, her, the space, the light, the sky, the feeling, always this way, preserved.
Always, he says.
Suddenly she turns away.
