Short Story – Shadows and edges

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Short Story – Shadows and edges

Regina Mangundu

 

I watch as the car stops. Dark, sleet grey. A handsome breed of car. It flashes its lights and reverses towards me. 

Something runs through me at that moment, a revelation of some sort. A diagram of what life had in store for all. 

As the car purrs softly next to me, it evokes warmth in me and I decide. A momentary blindness and then whoosh – the air seeps out of me. Cold, oh so cold. And then the door opens bringing with it a warmth so rarely known to my insides.

I take a side step and gulp down some inner unknown calmness washing over me. I wonder how anything so ordinary as a vehicle can evoke this in me. I watch the door’s inviting warm calm effect and all this I take in as I move into the passenger seat. I croak out a thank you and the car moves, oh so smoothly. 

Silence immediately shrouds us casting hummed slow motions between me and my companion. My curiosity is peaked to the point that I cast sideway glances at the driver but alas nothing. It is too dark to see anything or him. Too silent to do anything but watch the shadows of the outside world passing by. I can’t help but wonder how the silence can be so deafening; how it can create and recreate feelings I wished were buried beneath my soul. 

I sit wondering what to do as the silence from the car presents itself then I hear a faint hum of a song and something strikes in me. Yearning. The word runs through me and it hammers me about causing me to turn towards my companion. 

I feel something as my mind tries to register this sudden lightness in me. I move against the seat trying to calm my pirating heart, yearning for what my heart seeks but could not find. 

Then he hums oh so softly and the yearning for anything or something against the void that swarms within me diminishes but alas that sound smooths me over. It smooths the warring signs my heart is currently going through as I listen to the calming sounds my companion does. 

I find solace in this car but mostly, I find myself as I hum to the song. With a smile upon my heart.