A/N: Another new story. Mostly to cheer up my muse in the wake of hearing Flashpoint will end after this coming season. I needed a love story that was different from the other stuff I currently have in the works, so it's more for my enjoyment than anything else, although I hope you guys enjoy it as well.
Silently Speaking
I sit in a comfortably padded wicker chair, staring out the salon window as the sun comes up as I hug my worn, but never torn, notebook to my chest. I'm dressed in layers upon layers of clothing not simply because the morning air held its usual additional chill, the care facility has good central heating, but because I'm old. Same reason as anybody else here. You see, I'm not anything special. I was never a world leader. I was never rich. I was never a celebrity. I obviously never found the secret to immortal youth. No, I'm just a simple man who, by the grace of God, has lived to the ripe old age of eighty-one.
You know what's funny? I haven't always been much of a believer in God. I've seen so much pain, heartache, and fear in my many years on this earth that I didn't want to believe there was some all-powerful being who let all that go on, who let people kill each other in his name. Now, I confess, there's a personal, selfish reason I changed my views. Like I said, I'm not anything special. Nobody changes their view without there being something in it for him or her. So, you're probably wondering what's in it for me, right now. Hope. Hope for one of those good days that seem to be getting shorter and further spaced apart. The good days when the chill that clings to my bones is all but forgotten. The good days when my once-sharp, now-failing eyesight might be more worthy of a young sniper than a simple old man such as myself. The good days when the sun shines just a little brighter, even if it's hidden above the clouds. The good days that science and everyone around me has insisted for about the last ten years would cease. The good days that have yet to cease in occurrence.
It is in the hope of having one of those good days that I push past the arthritis in what sometimes feels like all of my joints in order to rise from my chair and shuffle out of the salon. Most of the facility's residents are still tucked away in their rooms, so the halls are devoid of people besides a few staff members. I exchange familiar greetings with these familiar people, ask and answer familiar questions about family. About children and grandchildren. I shuffle on with the familiar sensation that they are about to start speculating about whether or not I'm going to have a good day today.
I now arrive at the room I seek and find a visage as familiar as the path I took from the salon to the room. She is already awake, sitting in one of the chairs that sits in front of her window, looking out at the same scene I was just moments ago taking in myself. Now, I take a minute to absorb her beauty through my eyes. To thank God I'm still live to do so. To thank God she's alive for me to do so.
Her image now properly etched on my brain, I enter the room and settle myself into the second chair in front of her window. I say, "Good morning." She doesn't look at me or give any acknowledgement that she hears my voice. I'm not discouraged. She rarely acknowledges my presence first thing in the morning anymore.
My stiff, arthritic fingers have an easier time of setting my glasses on my face than they do opening the notebook. Sometimes, I think it's because the notebook is almost as old as I am and just as fragile. Other times, I think it's because the book is just so damn precious to me that my brain is telling my hands to go gentle without my mind knowing it. I like to think the latter. I think it's closer to the truth. Especially considering the notebook isn't even half my age.
The book is sitting open in my lap. My glasses are settled on my face making the words on the current page sharp enough for reading. She is sitting before me, silently staring out the window, giving no indication that she is listening to a word I say. I begin to read anyway, as I always do, and I hope she hears me. I hope she hears the story of two told by one.
This is kind of a teaser. A prologue if you will. The real storytelling will begin with tomorrow's update. Why will there be an update tomorrow? Because I would feel weird posting something today, but not tomorrow when I got used to updating Crossing the Divide on Fridays.