Golden Absence (standard:romance, 199 words)
Author: KShaw	Added: Oct 09 2005	Views/Reads: 3584/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
When the closeness of a body is enough...even if that body is a shell of what once was

It ‘appens over a period of time, conversation slackening to silence,
the ol' girl's bumpy hands working instinctively, her mind deep in 
thought, remembering, knitting a cardigan for the ol' man, forty nine 
years her husband. 

It happens imperceptibly slowly, through a stage when forgetful is
funny, till the rhythm of relationship is interrupted, never to be the 
same. 

They cannot, like many companionable couples, call at will upon
intimacy. 

Lifelong companions, unspeaking, they endure the absurdity of blossoming
illness. The once surfeit of his warmth, never staunched by sleep, has 
slipped, finally, into the icy chill of non recognition. Through the 
window she watches the moon cast its light across the valley from 
behind ponderous cloud, shedding monochrome shadows over the hills. She 
lowers her head, continuing the clacking of needles. 

Brahms gentles her mind while the ‘ol' man' sits staring into yellow
flickering flames, wearing the pullover she had knit him for Christmas. 
As a war bride she had known loneliness, yet somehow this was worse, 
for she knew, now, he was never coming home. 

Disease spreads through him, like a hawk, picking him clean, leaving
just the stone terrace face as a façade to his absence. 


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