Our escape and years of time in the sun had unravelled him-ruffled his hair, undone the buttons of his too-small jacket, cracked and crushed his voice into a round and deep huff, baked his skin golden-but still. Still the moments of tidiness and his old disturbingly-earnest self, and words... strange words tug at my lips, unspoke.
When did this all start? Noticing, seeing, divining (really, agonizing). I've lost all my marbles, or the heat's doing something funky, does what it does to dogs that pant.
(I know what I want.)