Shushed
A clumsy crest of snow scraped the air as she collapsed. The ground opened its cavernous jaws and swallowed her fingers whole like Ahab’s white whale. Flicks of winter spiraled on chilling gusts and latched onto her hair, now a black-velvet curtain hanging in the window of her face. She simply stared at that sea of white for a moment, her head bowed and trembling from the cold and the crying. When she finally looked up, every part of her face strained to make a sound. Her eyes screamed. Her mouth kept growing and shrinking, blossoming and wilting as she tried to eke out a yell, a yelp, a shriek or a squall, any noise.
But nothing came. I couldn’t hear her. Or anything. No wind, no weeping. Nothing at all.
Then a black hole leapt onto her throat. It was the size of a penny and it dripped dark water like a chink in Charon’s ferry. Everything stopped. She grasped for me with her eyes before falling face first into the snow.
I ran to her with my mind, but my legs didn’t come with me. It’s hard to be agile when you’re hunched over, I thought, and gutshot.
A clumsy crest of snow scraped the air as I was kicked over. A grunt jumped out of my mouth and I tasted a bit of copper. In a sideways slant, I could see the batch of roses I’d bought for her birthday splayed out on the ground, some brutally snapped in half from the struggle, some just shocked out of their petals. A hand grabbed the shoulder of my jacket and flipped me onto my back.
His eyes screamed, too, but it was a primitive thing like the minutes before, a spark of barbarism in the city. He thrust his face toward mine, but stopped a hair away. Then, gently and strangely, he put his finger against his lips and mine and shushed.
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