One Night

 

Her eyes trace his fingers holding the wine glass as he raises it up to his lips and back down to his thighs but never truly touching them. His hands - those veins as they carry his life through him, the blood that runs within, that flows within, so close to him, so precious, but lost to sight, invisible, but there. The presence of which is never known unless a wound appears and pain draws attention, and so it gushes out to freedom, to declare its existence - the concoction of life. That very blood rushes beneath his skin - that light skin must feel smooth on touch. It always glows of the same colour. She has memorized it. Her eyes have caressed it many times before; on his wrists, his face, his arms. Tonight they have decided to land on his hands, outlining the veins. She follows these veins as they travel back up, vanishing into his sleeves after bending, curving a while on his hands. She imagines them running the whole length of his arm under the fabric of his shirt up to his neck, where they re-emerge, curving around, dancing around as they reach his face. This is when her eyes would always zoom out in vision; the scars, the depressions, the blemishes, the perfections. Her eyes have never traversed the entirety of his face in a single occasion. Every such instance stops them in track at one or another element of his visage. They pause, admire, and cry. The tears blur the vision, but she loves it; she hates it. This night they rest a little on his eyes. Those pair of eyes - glowing bright, serene and deep - have overshadowed her entire existence so quickly. She falls into them, watches them dart around from one object to the next, but never on her. She imagines what it would feel like if they were to rest onto hers for a little while longer, considerably longer, as long as hers do, perhaps even longer. She wonders if hers would exude the same relief and tranquillity as his do, when she dives into them, submerging herself completely, wrapped around his presence, feeling him close. She would have fallen deeper, known him better, had not just then she heard a loud shatter of a glass at a distance; in a snap, the greys and blacks of her reverie give way to the brilliance of numerous lights shone around her. The glass she was holding had lost her grip and had come down breaking into innumerable little pieces. She looks down and sees her reflection in them.