Evening

A clock ticked silently on the mantle. Its face was the palest of the three faces in the room, faintly reflecting what light strained through the dusk. The other two faces turned towards each other, nestled in silence. The ticking of the clock and the quiet rustling of heavy curtains were sighs in an empty house.1

On a striped couch rested a young woman. Her hair was loosely framing her face, and her legs made a carefully adjusted bowl in her lap. She was perfectly still, her fingertips made light little circles in time with the clock. Carefully tucked away against her breast was a small nose. Above the nose were two long lashed eyes, lidded with sleep. A soft and messy tangle of hair topped the child's head and tickled the woman's neck when he moved. Chubby legs and arms slumped securely at his sides, and his little striped wool shirt rasped against his mother's finger nails. Even in sleep, the boy's breathing was twice as fast as the young woman's, and her lungs provided the harmony to the whispering melody of his breaths and the room's sighing. 2

She sat quietly in the dusk of the room, watching the day pass away. As life that she had created renewed itself in her arms, she asked the twilight "is this the reason I live?"