Waiting on a Memory

by Rashmi Vaish

The river crept up to her feet and touched her toes, the cool water sending a small shiver up her spine. She breathed in the scent of pine trees in the dusk, taking in as much as she could and let out the air from her mouth in a long, leisurely exhale, a soft vapor warming the insides of her lips. In the 25 years she had spent loving him, she had felt his warmth and known his passion on 15 occasions, each of which were seared into her memory and which she clung to for dear life for they were all she had of him. That, and a smattering of words, scrawled on handy pieces of paper, the last of which had arrived in the mail a year ago in a small white envelop flecked with coffee stains and hurriedly wiped off cigarette ash. She looked up at the geese fleeing south, leaving in their wake another desolate winter to live through and her heart twisted yet again at his silence. She wrapped her stole tighter around herself, walked to her patio, sat back in her wicker armchair and closed her eyes.

6S

Rashmi Vaish, former newspaper journalist and urban dweller, now lives in rural northern New York state and is currently dabbling in creative writing, photography and horse riding. She recently started updating her two-year-old blog more frequently. Drop by.