We filled the five chairs surrounding my black patio table and the black night filled the emptiness between the pauses of our words. I dealt the white cards. We peered into our hands, fanned like the rays of the sun that fell below the horizon over an hour ago. I set the black cards in the center of the patio table. We weren’t silent when we played. I was relieved that no one seemed to mind there were more shadows than there were bodies. There was an undertone of discomfort but it was silent against the threatening sharp of our laughter.

The cards traveled around the patio table in revolutions. White-winged things hovered brief and flitted back into shadows that weren’t their own. My company shivered shock-waves so I brought them blankets. The black blankets cloaked them from the cold coat of night and the game continued.

The cards made their round to me. I collected from my company until I held four foreign fanned white cards in my hands and read them aloud. We laughed. The last card left:

“A disappointing birthday party,” I read. We paused and looked at each other. We looked at the shadows. The uncomfort grew a little braver but we noticed so we laughed again. The night progressed in an atmosphere of genuity. The blatant card addressed the unspoken--carved a way to make it untrue. The cards made their last revolution.

My company arrived with gaps between each threshold crossing and left as a flock. The cars started and the white beams cut through the air, backed down the driveway, and parted onto their separate maze of roads. I watched them go. When the last one had left, I returned to my patio table. Black blankets left draped over the chairs--still holding the form of the body they had cloaked. Now there were only shadows. I brought the blankets and the gifts over the threshold of my bedroom. I reread the cards.

 He leaned against the base of a time-worn building, lax hands animating with each pulse. A biting chill down the spine broke his body from the time loop. Wisping gusts swept dust onto clammy, exposed skin.

Cold flashes threw him back. Flashbacks propelled him forward.

He could almost hear the name and could smell the violent lavender almost as distinctly, but saw nothing save the distorted mirages. No tactic could force his lense into focusing any further.

Lax hands became fists. Sleeping teeth became roaring boulders.

Quivering knees would have buckled had the heart weighed anymore. He was alone with she far out of reach. Fist rapped on cage of bone. It wanted out.

Clouds mirrored the turbulent mist. A tempest lashed inside him.

Fingernails clutched and clawed at flesh and breath to come away. He wanted to remove the desperate pull beneath the pulsing muscle.

He thought of her. He thought of her. He thought of guilt.

The hole burrowed deep. He plunged into himself; blind determination raging. Rapid hammering pounded threats into open, strained palm.

Retching hand became fist. Fist retched from chest.

He gasped as if just emerging from underneath rippling surface. Burdensome muscle fell from grip and thudded in the dust before him. He—bemused by the sight of its defeat—laughed. Such a quaint, powerless thing. Its vulnerability granted satisfaction.

The beating became sedated and labored. Eyelids compensated for the lost weight.

Her hair, her hands, her grief, his heart; he saw it all now. Knees met earth. He wished he had not tried to see.

Is this what I did to you? God, I’m so sorry.

The beating shuddered then ceased.

Is this what you wanted?

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