Ready to be Reminded

The engagement was 25 years old when he arrived. The platform was dusty under a heavy glare of sunlight, whence rose thousands of molecules that belonged to the dead and the buried and the germs that were not yet done eating them.

When she said hello he lifted his eyes as if to attempt to recall what the appropriate reply was. But she smiled when she saw his confusion and the little crow's foot appeared on either side of her eyes. They deepened when she spoke, the smile remaining like it was fixed there for a purpose. He was afraid the crude pattern would linger all throughout the ride home.

There was silence on the bumpy rode that he thought he missed at first until the engine grumbled as though it didn't mean to last the entire labor. But then the car stopped, he swooped down the pavement where there was a thick line of smiling faces ready to swallow him with words.The mouths spoke them with an expression he had long forgotten how to describe. He could speak, but he could just let them do it for them.

They were careful, ever so careful not to mention her name to him. If someone so much as breathed it, he would snap.

And he did.