Acquaintance in Trouble

On second look, she was prettier than I'd remembered.  She wasn't made up, she was frazzled, hair out of place and frayed on top.  She had her hands full with children and she was beautiful.  One could see the softness of her manner, the slope of her nose.  The distance between us played a role as well.  Magnifying, anchoring, providing means for a good stare, making a picture.   She looked like she was having a conversation with herself: brows straight, eyes wide, lips not moving but mouth perched.

She laughed.  The line was funny enough, but there was some residual laughter that leaked out.  Something she should've held onto.  The leak was excessive in its subtlety.  It exposed her age and attitudes.  And prompted a question from someone on the other side of the fire circle.

He just wanted something to do, something in which to be involved, a person with whom to be engaged, so he turned to intimacy with a television and a sofa, sandwiched between fantasy and sight.  But the sight chased the fantasy away.  He took to watching less and less and still looking for things to do.  He got in his car and drove.  Mistake.

She didn't know what to say.  She thought to get back in bed or sit at the end of the bed and start a chat, but made a statement instead.  After that, she turned on the television so that it could talk between them.  She thought then that forever, there would be some noise in there quiet moments, or nothing at all.