Magnum Opus

It was midday.

She rose from the bath and went to the bed, splitting lacquered hardwood with the nimble, beaded rain that spun from her fingertips.

Flowered wallpaper tore and grew itself anew as he folded her neatly into his arms and watched the puddles form on his clothing.

Cautiously, she put her tongue to his mouth and met the pulse of resistance.

Water

She heard only the beating of her heart resonating through the water. It was as if each sound began and ended in her eardrums but its echoes were small persistent streams spilling steadily out.

She listened. She felt a slight indifference that gave way to reluctant warmth.

The small oval of exposed skin left in her face began to shiver, to ebb, and to vanish.

The Moment

"I love you," she thinks, crashing through the overpass in an intensity of fear that at its core is a deep, resolute peace. As every detail tears through her consciousness she falls freely, weightlessly, towards an impenetrable golden calm.

A world away he gasps in his sleep - alert and contained in a thick, resplendent silence.

Closing his eyes again, he knows that she is gone.