That hospital post is coming. However, my fingers keep begging for fiction and little pieces of prose find their way in so I feel I must honour the muse. After the drought, here’s another rapid fire post, inspired back into being by last night’s dance routine ::

cleft

He was ruined when he met her. She was young, fresh as a spring breeze and resplendent with fallow promise. He fell as her skirts rose in increments, sliding up as the season warmed. Inched above a bare, bruised knee, heading heavenward.

His eyes caught hers and sparked, desire igniting a conspicuous conspiracy.  His smile rooted in hers, growing across her face like a tree. His sad heart beat an earnest timpani, hoping hers would catch the beat and play. But hers knew a wholly happier tune for hers was an altogether more hopeful heart – she heard his melancholic plea and tapped back.

Quiet, he listened through the darkness, her tune finding him deep in the night, alone in his conjugal bed. Like a signal, a cipher, a code. He understood only in part – certain pieces fell through the floorboards and drowned in his sadness. Infinitesimal whispers were strangled, sucked into a pit of never ending sorrow. And shame.

Cautiously optimistic, his heart beat back a limping, broken rhythm in strange hope –perhaps they could bridge the void together? Like a butterfly, she flittered: first here, then there, back here, there again and then gone… He lost track, lost hope – frustrated.  Giving up, he sank back below oceans of self-pity.

She turned, beckoning him on.

Dejected, he sighed. “I can’t” he complained, beat. “I’m too old, too wounded, too sore.”

“But you can” urged she. “If you will. Keep going, keep on…”

“It’s too far” he moaned. “You’re young and strong. Too idealistic, too fast, too free. You don’t understand what it’s like to be me!”

..vs love

Tenderly, she smiled. Twin upward arching edges tinged through, rusting with subtle sadness. “Ah, but I do, I know you. It’s just fear which weighs you down, keeps you bound and tired. Leeching magic from life. Just keep on!”

“It’s too hard!” he groaned, teeth grit.

“Harder still to struggle and complain as you choose to” retorted she.

Face setting, humour failed, he growled “ok Ms Flighty – tell me what to do!”

She smiled, gentle. “Keep open, breathe, stay light, follow your heart…”

“Seriously?” he spat. Took out his dark sword and cut off her head.

*