Gifts Ungiven

It had been fourteen days. The painting was gone and with it my heart. Authored by an amateur it had meant more to me than any museum in the world. Each day that passed felt like a relentless excavation into my chest, letting in the outside ice and snow that would melt and refreeze, again and again, distilling the painting's absence until all that was left was a burden of solidified emptiness. It became difficult to get out of bed or to carry myself upright once I had done so. I wondered if I was more affected by gravity now that I was a painting lighter in some kind of perversion of the law of attraction. The pull downward was so strong, that I often had to brace myself against wall or banister to keep myself from falling. Once I sagged there, barely holding on, waiting for my strength to return enough to take another step.

This one moment of eager shyness had buoyed me long after she was gone and now she was gone again. Happy dimples no longer smiled and I felt the heat of her candles around me no longer.