Memories Affecting.

It’s cold. Too cold. The ice is biting the skin of my nose. I am wrapped in thick woollens but I feel too exposed. Like there are vultures in the air. The air is crisp and clear and I do not think my nose as ever felt so whipped.

She does not care that I am free, she cares that I am not hers. If I were hers she’d be happier. I bought her an acoustic guitar and I told her to write me a song. She didn’t. She said there was no point, as I wouldn’t be stolen from my loneliness by it. The next day I saw the neck of the damned thing in her bin.

The rosary beads he clutches are old and battered. They are his grandmother’s and he’s stolen them from her – well, she knows. He knows that his grandmother knows that he stole them from her dead fingers. He hopes his grandmother won’t mind. He remembers the cloying scent of the church at her funeral and the tears spill down his cheeks again. Hail Mary full of grace.

They do not speak it but they remember the park where they played as children. She remembers the way he ran to her if she fell off the swings or landed harshly off the end of the slide. He remembers the way he hated that her mother didn’t panic when she fell and hurt herself. What if she’d broken her leg? What if her ribs cracked and one punctured her lungs and – he does not let himself think like that anymore. He knows it will only upset him. She notices this on his face, the worry, the frown, and she smiles. She takes his hand in her own and whispers, “We’re alive.”