AND THEN THERE WAS ONE

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE
Jean Byrne

Time stood still for her then. In that raised cabin in who knows what part of the world. She paused in front of the wooden shutters, trying to peek through. Teasing herself until finally she slowly opened them and allowed her eyes to devour what lay before her. Not all at once. Calmly dwelling on each inch of what she saw.

Dense trees. Lush and green. Looking like sleepy giants with gently tossled hair. The sounds of birds she could not see. A sudden dip into a deep blue, almost black, sea. It looked calm from afar but she knew that as it reached the bay it grew angry, noisey, white frothy jaws aching to gobble up the earth. She herself had felt that ache.

She sensed him come from the bedroom, sleepy-eyed with messy hair. She always felt most tenderness towards him in those moments. She wished she had had that tenderness for him in every moment. He deserved it. She didn’t speak. She saw how he rubbed his head and she took him by the hand to the balcony. They stood there without thinking, soaking it all in.

She knew it would not be right to talk, to put what she felt into words. She wanted to remember it with her senses. Words would turn that unspeakable beauty into a clumsy attempt at ownership.

They stood there without thinking, soaking it all in.

She had come here to get away. Two months had passed since he died. Time stood still in that cabin, but for her time had stood still since she lost him forever.

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose. Exhaling slowly through her mouth, tightened into a tiny O shape. Releasing herself from the old air. That stale old air that had filled her lungs for too long. Once ‘they’, ‘us’, and then there was one… floating in timelessness and stale old air.