Brevity

She no longer graced my superficial injuries with her honeyed eyes, but deliberately sought my own. Her expression distracted from the detriment and irritability it had once beheld and became inscrutable. I tried in futility to derive rationality and ventured forth a number of centimeters, as though clarity might offer insight. Her busied hand stroked the opposite hemisphere of my face with the medicated fabric poised between us. Between my rampant thoughts and the depleting proximity between the woman and I, I realized my heart had carried off without me. The ceaseless thrum of the loathsome muscle against my chest wracked my entire body, drumming away at my ears and smothering even the subtlest of sounds from attracting my attention.

“Ziio,” I said, deafened.