In the Attic Time Passes

 

He sits at a small wooden desk nestled into an attic alcove as northern light flows through the window creating soft shadows.

The click-clack of a typewriter sends echoes careening off of wooden floors and hard plaster walls, his head bowed, back bent.

He smells the ink of the ribbon, the residue of a long dissolved peppermint, and a hint of mothballs from decades passed.

The ideas are flowing freely in this symphony of senses when he hears the door creak and footsteps ascending the stairs.

The top of her head appears followed by smiling eyes.  She has two glasses in hand that she carries to the opposite alcove.

A café-style table is there, southern light sparkles and winks through the ice cubes and condensed water droplets.

***

He looks back down at the tiny black letters on white paper and taps out a few more until the paragraph is complete.

She waits for him to look up again and then playfully pats the chair seat across from her.  He practically prances and she laughs.

The water is cold and tastes faintly of lemon.  His intent gaze turns her bashful which she attempts to block with a gesture,

but his hand plucks her’s from the air between them and he leads her to the sofa that sits in the middle of the mirrored space.

They lie front to front and cheek to cheek as a spiral of pleasure swirls them into one body hovering just above the floor.

Time speeds up, slows down, and then becomes something without form or meaning as breath and life cycle in perpetual motion…

***

He awakens to the sound of the door shutting which extinguishes the feeling of contentment as he realize she has left.

He rolls off the couch, feeling heavy, and descends the stairs only to find an abandoned house of dust and cracked surfaces.

There is debris he must navigate around and a broken bannister he dares not touch as he makes his way down and out of the house.

On the street there is no sign of her, neither East nor West, which leaves him nowhere to run in the search for lost love.

He glances up at the attic window and believes he sees a shadow pass there and so runs back through the ruin to that place.

But the attic is now ruined as well with missing plaster and an acrid moldy smell: empty of furniture, empty of life, empty of love.