Tiny fiction

by Susan Abraham

And she saw him today, head bent at work.

As usual, he appeared not to notice but she in her emotional lighthouse, where dishelvelment melted into the great high rocks of her steadfast heart, with the winter now warring thin and the spring fast coming...she saw everything.

She caught a glimpse of his height as he bent to retrieve something, his smile as he winked at a friend.

And with patience for a shadow, she quietened her thoughts into willing, "Let him rest."

Today, her heart need not fear, she would not go near.

Already, they had met yesterday in a strange game of wills, they had begun to play together, day after day, each knowing and yet to the other seeming unknowing.

But the time had finally come and he had looked into her eyes and called her beautiful.

To the hidden spirit and oblivious that perhaps, she was getting a little old for such things, she accepted the compliment graciously.

But within herself, she knew she would never be too old for him.

Already, the taste of her lips felt to him like honey in glue...he did not want to be parted from her, would suffer real pain if she went away.

For the first time in a long time he told her this.

And now the new beginning would start from the old ending that had shut its doors. He had finally noticed her from where she had noticed him for such a long time before.

And they must play a different game from waiting; now together, they must cast the dice.

But a lighthouse doesn't stumble and it bides its time and it waits for its lovers, wrapping a shawl around them that they may keep warm in the cold dark night.

In the cold dark night when ships pass on without a word and without a kiss.

Of course, she would miss his smile but on waiting a while, she needed to foil a magic strand for every whisper and in her memory bunch them up into a tight posy of roses to closet within her forever.

And he had called her beautiful.

And so today, with her own infactuation tired, but at last happy, she closed her eyes for one moment to a brief eternity and said, "Let him rest."

Photography credit: Tessa Traeger/nouvelleimages)