Winter arrived, not as snow and white and sky of blue, but as melancholy grey that held low and damp as cloud over world with precipitation that did not so much fall as appeared in sudden failed suspension from limit to grey’s depression.
The colors of the world were gone, oaks last to hold their leaves, all having passed through states of color and show and hanging then, limp and sodden on the limbs. Not even a wind, just grey that seemed a weight and dreariness upon the world.
They had planned a day outdoors, walks in the parks and public solitude in a world turned inward and upon itself; but in the grey and damp depression, they too were kept and harbored in.
Annie rested on a chair, broad window beside shaded of light by the grey, and only a candle of kindled thought beside to light and warm in idea of ambiance that reached faint from point of flame. She tried to read, but the story was not hers, and in it she lost, or could never force interest. She looked to the world outside, the wet and cold of grey, and the sound of passing cars splashing waves of the curbside currents like passing barrel-roll of breaking sea that seemed a nice metaphor and distraction from the dreariness that was.
Across in home, James stared through other pane, view not of the road but of maple limb and tree stripped of year and season’s dress. The bark of the limbs, pale when dry, were darkened in the soak of somewhat rain; and the bare earth, shadowed when full-leafed, shone muddied and water pooled in the recesses shaped by roots’ basal shapes.
Not in the world, as grey and despondency do, he thought inward and wondered why it was, in one season, mind so often thinks to another. In height of life, one thinks to the valleys, in sun the darkness, and when reversed—the same.
So there in the grey and rain and cold depression of winter’s beginning season, he thought to a summer day; and in eyes and on lips, Annie saw his smile.
“What are you thinking of?” she asked.
His face turned away from the somberness and to sight of warmer sign. Eyes held and smile grew, and he laughed light as one does when drawn, unexpected, from the depth of a private thought.
“What?” Annie asked again.
James shrugged, looked to the kindled light of thought beside Annie in her rest. Flame flickered and a light danced on a wind he did not see but felt in after-current of the change.
“I was thinking of you on a summer day,” he spoke, smiling to the memory, “of you in your summer dress, the drape of its flow and fall from your shoulders and the way it showed the curves and swell and shape of your hips. I was thinking of your tan lines then, sharp boundaries wanting seen and touched and crossed; the light of your face under shade of summer brim, and the scent of earth on your hands after working in the garden and after you would hold my face when we kissed.”
In the shade of grey-covered world, he felt the warmth and color of his face giving sign of blush in open saying.”
Annie listened, and her muted face and thoughts and expression, after, showed too a hue of life; breaking from the grey.
She rested quiet, eyes leaving his as she went inward too, gaze holding on yet seeing through candle glow of kindled thought.
Annie rose from rest and departed for a time. When she returned, she was dressed in long white gown that flowed from shoulders to her feet, wisping with stride and every body movement, body before gown bringing drape and fabric tight in show of body beneath.
She smiled, faint, as she knew he held all of James’ attention; her body angled, seeing out of corner of her eye; then turning, she faced again the seat where she had read and the kindled thought still burning.
With hands to shoulders, she drew dress straps beside and cover fell into lovely collapse to floor. Gone were the lines of summer, a different loveliness in the dress of winter’s white.
She moved to the chair and sat again, tipping brim of hat to James; eyes wide and fixed as across her skin rose feeling of warmth beyond small candle-light beside as she returned into repose, legs long and crossed on ottoman before as she opened book again to page of story, then detail to a greater one that lived.
She waited for his movement, approach, and the spread of her lips to teeth-born smile when is own lips held near; breaths in slow soft winds through space between.
Candle wavered, breath and life given into the kindled flame, and in the world of grey depression; they shared in different season.