clock on the wall

She sits at the table, waiting for him. Her legs crossed just so, her top leg daintily bobbing nervously. Her honey-colored hair coiffed, not a strand out of place. The wise old mahogany clock on the wall ticks loudly. Each tock weighted with the unsaid, each tock screaming to her what she already knows, what she’s known since their return from Rome. She glances to the door. Nothing. She hesitates leaving her post; she is somehow frozen in this life that became hers. Her eyes slowly fall to the floor. She smoothes over her skirt with her delicate hands and pauses for a moment. She notices silence. Her head tilts as if in puzzlement as she stares to the wall. The ticking and tocking has stopped. In the hush she manages to move. Without haste she makes her way to the clock, lifts her hand to feel the silkiness and persuasiveness of its lines and without faltering, calmly thrashes and batters it to the floor watching it break into a million muted pieces.

Leaving the mess on the cold tiles beneath her, she steps over the shards and walks away in reticence, quietly smiling to herself in silence. Sweet ignorant silence. For now.