Speech

Deaf, she suddenly comes to realize it. She blinks, and her eyelashes hurt her eyes.

He has been talking, intently, unstoppably, and the soaring of her neck tells her that she has been nodding all along. He, of course, has been submerged in the oblivions of his own speech, a speech she knows nothing of, making her wonder if what he’s saying is important, or delicate, or interesting even. She bites her lower lip, she’s too lost at this point to ask him, and too entranced to care.

As an honest result she stares at him, at his eyes, at his moving mouth. She surprises herself shortening the distance she has been managing to build between them, to listen properly, only that she never listens at all. Words flow out of his mouth, sound manages to bounce on the skin of her cheeks, but none of it makes any sense at all to her.

She stops nodding, why nod at all? why move at all? why even breathe at all?

She can tell, by the heat that rises up her chest, that she is becoming a menace. She feels when her eyes silence him, admitting just how empty his monologue has been to her. Maybe it was the involuntary movement of her lips, the beating of her chest, or the swallowing of her throat, but she leads him to be under the impression that she will say something next. And so he approaches her, only an inch, and his eyes tell her that he is preparing to listen intently to...absolutely nothing, for she is not planning to speak at all.

She does not bite her lips this time, or raises her eyebrow, or does anything that can provoke him enough to scare him off. Instead, her mouth betrays her,

"You fascinate me," she whispers, shaking her head, amazed, not by feeling it, but by admitting it so fully.

His svelte mouth, which has remained still, twists up ways, eloquently.

She wakes up.

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Art: Margees