WoW - The Dance

   
This week we are linking up with Claire at Quilt of Dragonflies for WoW.

The prompt this week is zany:

This week, try to find the zany in your life, or just create the zany in someone else's. Feel free to write a fictional quirky character, or take inspiration from your own life. Wherever the prompt takes you, a letter, poem, song, anything you feel like writing. Keep your post on the short side: up to 500 words OR a 5 minute stream of consciousness exercise. Link your finished piece to the list and begin popping by the other links to enjoy others writing. The linky will be open from Monday to Friday.

This post is more a physical observation rather than a character one but I hope that can be forgiven.

I may link up a second post in a few days based on the same person but more in keeping with the prompt.


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I study his face intently although Ive seen it a thousand or more times before.



The creases at the corner of his eye are slightly lighter than the surrounding skin from squinting into the sun perhaps, or where laughter has caused them to pleat with mirth.

Has his hairline receded a little over the years?

I can't be sure. 

Maybe he's always had that slightly high forehead, or maybe there is just that little bit more on show these days.

If I look closely I see a few threads of grey  but they are lost in a mixture of almost white blond and gold.

The illusion is of eternal youth, of vitality.

I can't see the colour of his eyes from this angle but I know they are the deep clear blue of the Cornish sea on a summers day  in the light brown setting of a year round tan from spending every moment possible outside.

The tips of his lashes are a darker shade of blond than his hair and touched with gold.

His nose is very straight.  I've always had a bit of a thing about noses.  They don't have to be perfect they just have to have a certain indefinable something. 

A nose has so much character don't you think? 

For me even more so than eyes or lips.

With his head turned slightly away from me I can only see the curve of his bottom lip.  It's full and he's smiling faintly at the antics played out before him.

Sensing my gaze he briefly glances my way before turning back to the screen but his hand reaches out and covers mine, a thumb gently stroking my wrist over and over.

I continue my observation.

There are flecks of grey in his beard, but is it a beard?  No, not really, just three days or so shy of a razor and yet, it's a little too long right now to be called stubble.

Tomorrow it may be gone, replaces by smooth skin, the contours of his face visible once more. But today I have an urge to reach out and stroke it, it looks so soft.

My hand moves almost of its own volition as I lift it to test this theory.  He senses the movement and turns again towards me, I quickly change direction and brush my hair out of my eyes.

"Are you tired" he asks.

He askes me many questions, over and over again. 

Are you tired, have you eaten, are you cold, are you ok? 

Knowing, that unchecked, I  neglect to address these simple things for myself.

I shake my head because I can't begin to articulate the thoughts in my mind.

He smiles and releases my hand and I feel chilled until he reaches out an arm pulling me against his side and my head rests on his shoulder.

This time his touch isn't mindless.  Its warm and comforting and for a moment I think I might cry.

I can feel emotions building inside me, looking desperately for some expression, some outlet, some way to stop them from turning inwards and onto me.

To stop me from drowning.

I swallow and clear my throat and his grip tightens slightly as he offers me a sip from his glass of water.

Again I soundlessly shake my head, afraid that I wont be able to swallow, that I'm too full, that the action of contracting the necessary muscles would actually choke me.

I wonder if he can sense my torment as he folds his other arm around me and gathers me in a hug kissing the top of my head.

I close my eyes and breath in the warm clean scent of him.

"I should have held on to you years ago".

His words, half joking hang, like dust motes suspended in sunlight in the air between us these days.

How I wish he had.

Our lives would have been full of gentle laughter, of brown skinned, blond haired children.  Of sea breezes and certainty.

But the time was never right, there was always so much to do, we were never ready at the same time and so, for over 20 years, we have continue our dance.

Moving towards each other, touching briefly before bowing and spinning away to take another hand.

Now the music has stopped and we face each other uncertainly.

But maybe it's just me that's uncertain.  He seems so sure.

His hand is reaching out to me and this time I know that if I take it then it must be with both of mine.

And I hesitate.

I stood here once before, another face, another hand.

And I still hear the whisper of that music.

It haunts me.

New beginnings dictate that there must be endings, and I can't find mine.