Persistence of Vision – an optical illusion wherein the eye retains a visual image after it has been removed, creating the appearance of motion in a series of still images. When the frequency of images is too high to discern differences between moments, light and dark fuse together into a darker continuous impression.
Prologue
She was curled in a half crescent, asleep on the Adirondack chair on the porch. He watched her chest softly rise and fall and noted the almost imperceptible movement of her eyelids. He saw the strands of hair that escaped her bun tremble in the wind. Her hands were loosely coiled around a once-warm cup of tea which had been mostly consumed then left to grow cold.
He saw all these little details, and tried to feel something.
She came out the front door then – her astral self, with her wild hair and scarlet crown –and looked at him with what must have been hate. "You," she said.
The projection vanished as Wanda woke. She sprung up and raised her hands in one sweeping motion, flinging him several hundred feet away and into the lake.
Sinking in the icy mountain water, he tried again to conjure an appropriate emotion, but nothing came except for a slideshow of memories and the vague idea of what feelings had been associated with them:
Wanda swam in the ocean on an island beach – happiness and desire.
They held hands as they walked through the night in Scotland – contentedness.
She would not leave him when the Children of Thanos attacked – fear, gratitude, fear.
She saw him for the first time when he was born – curiosity.
She saw him for the first time after the battle at the airport – hope, excitement.
She saw him for the last time in Wakanda – love.
She saw him just now – nothing.
Nothing at all.