What Happens When the Charm Runs Out

by Victor S. Smith

There was something about the way that the door closed, a muffled whump versus a tell-tale, I'm not done yet slam, that told me she was done and wouldn't be back. The air hung heavy and I waited. Usually if I counted to ten she would be back with her finger pointing at me, in the face, thumping my chest and she would continue to scream, the spit and vitriol of her anger filling the empty spaces in the room. But this time, she didn't say anything; she stood there, rigid, unwavering with her arms folded across her chest. She just looked at me and shook her head - and that was another thing, there wasn't a tear anywhere on her face, no waterworks, not even the red of the eyelids that said she had been crying, nothing; she was a Mojave Desert of emotion - grabbed her bag that was at her feet and walked out past me into the hallway. I could hear her shoes clicking down the parquet floors: one, two, three, four... but there was nothing: and then she was gone.

6S

Victor S. Smith, who asked What's On Your Mind?, is undertaking a frightening new endeavor. He is trying to dedicate three hours every day to writing. Follow along at Marlowe's Sketch Pad.