To See Her Stand There So Still

left him breathless. She, embodiment of the law: for every action a reaction. She, the inevitable thrust of a loaded spring. She, shadow lurking in the obscurity of “NO,” green eyes aglitter. And now she, sullen woman, her silk shoes soaked asunder, crumbling at her feet. She held in one hand the amputated heel of the left; her toes gripped the tattered sole. How he wished to do the same.

He wished to speak the same words to her: don’t don’t don’t – the same as he had always spoken; and he cursed himself that he had. He cursed the unforgiving word that like a stamp pounding incessantly in red rectilinear ink had denied all, forbidden all to her. But now that it was the time for it, this single utterance was denied to him.

She did not shiver, simply pinched her eyes against the wind that lashed the hair about her face; that flew up across the water, haptic sirens urging her to the sea. But even these could not entrance her, and having failed in their seduction dissolved into a whispering howl inside the conch shell of his ear. Whirling anguish, an ocean of it – a tidal wave unseen until it reached the shore and the pink, frothy crest of it rose between his teeth.

“Lara,” he said, and it died.

This name which had once been the proclamation of assault, the instigator of action, the breath of life against the flame, died amidst the greater winds. Simply lay down, and died. Norman wished he had been wise enough to see it endangered, at the brink, somewhere among the still-living, still – Living.

Still.

She was.

“Norm,” she said, twisting the gold band free.

A moment of silence passed.

“Don’t.”

[Hey guys, sorry for the inactivity lately. I haven't had time to comment although I have been reading the posts. Thumbs up! :D]