SYLVIE’S WAKENING

There's an end to everything, even a long heart-aching night....

“How can it be so dark?” he wondered with the idleness of the absolutely motionless, “there never was such a dark as this, never was such a night, never were so few stars, never was so absolutely black a moon...”

By few stars he meant no stars. And to make things a great deal less clear he wasn’t absolutely sure that it was night. No night had ever been quite like this, and he’d known years and years of nights. They were dark, yes, but never like this.

Though he was in bed. He knew that. He remembered climbing into it. He could taste the kiss Sylvie had oozed into his mouth. She was breathing like the angel she was, he could hear her, next to him.

Then he remembered the dull knocking in his head before sleep had stolen it from him. Blessed, welcome sleep.

At least, he thought it was sleep.

And the subtle pounding in his chest, bump, bump, bump.

Be wary of pounding in your chest: it might hurt. It was good that this one hadn’t. He’d kissed Sylvie back, and more. Much more, so that was the pounding. The aftershock of procreation. Was it? An echo of love or lust or whatever it had been.

“You’d best come now,” breathed the voice, just like he’d expected, though it wasn’t Sylvie breathing next to him, in, out, in, out, steady as breathing goes.

Best come where? And who had so febrile a whisper on a black night like this?

And the black night clawed at him, he could feel it like kittens or cats on his aching skin. It was making him bleed, he shouldn’t wonder, like claws do.

“Come now,” sighed the feverish susurration. He tried to look at Sylvie, but the shadows were too dark. They were shadows on shadows, and the thought made him shiver.

“The dark...” he tried to murmur, but that kind of sound was gone from him. Sound and light, both were gone. Had they been here, once upon a time, or were they a dream?

“There’s a long cold night,” sighed the voice, inside his head and outside it.

And he knew that much was true.

Sylvie stirred. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was just that he expected her to stir. Can’t expectation be the mother of most thoughts?

“She’ll be fine without you,” confirmed the silent form of words. “When she wakes up, that is, she’ll be fine. She will wake up, you know, of course she will.”

“How can it be so dark?” he tried to wonder, but the thought fizzled out before he reached the question mark.

“Am I dead?” he asked, foolishly.

The voice sniggered and he knew the answer, but it scared him.

“You’ll frighten me to death...” he sighed.

“Frighten the dead to death? That’s a fine one!” laughed a shape in the air, one he couldn’t see or feel or hear but guessed was there.

“So am I?” he forced out, knowing the question was daft.

“Why would I be here otherwise?” The voice was silence crafted into sense.

He wanted to go on, to ask more, but he found that something about him was being taken by an unseen hand, and he was being gently, invisibly, guided from the bed while Sylvie snored.

“She’ll be glad of the trace you left behind,” breathed the silent voice. “You know, the way it seeps out of her, the way it runs down her legs like liquid mist...”

He wanted to say something, but his time was up

He lay still like only the dead lie still. Sylvie would know what to do. She always knew stuff, always solved problems.

And he loved her.

© Peter Rogerson 01.09.16