The instant that Ryder’s car collided with the source of the persistent horn, a small gust moved the draperies in the old house. Her cry was heard only by the small silver dust particles that danced dreamlike into the sunlight. They lofted softly around, stirred from the stillness by the breeze that drifted through the house. As the draperies came once again still and at rest, Ryder was listening to the last bits of shattered glass landing on the street and hurried voices from a cloudy but close distance. Much like those tiny particles dancing in the sunlit room, his thoughts drifted aimlessly. His eyes fell slowly closed as his fingers tightened onto the scrap of white paper still in his hand.

As his thoughts drifted, people from the parking lot, and stopped on the edge of the road, milled restlessly around the perimeter of the cars. Someone shouted from the payphone that an ambulance was on its way. Others talked secretly about what had just happened. Some asking if someone was hurt, looking into the cars hoping morbidly to catch a glimpse of the victims. The siren in the distance grew louder by the moment, announcing its progress toward the scene. Someone in the back of the gathering crowd mentioned something about it arriving in time. Ryder’s mind drifted between the picture, the cold soda and thoughts of Dominic waiting for his arrival. Blackness hazed deeper into his mind, covering the thoughts he had. A blackness drowning his thoughts in a sea of nothingness, dark and empty, it swallowed him.

The old house was silent. Its personality changed. Cold and lifeless, it stood against the warm sunlit sky. Outside the windows seemed to inhale the mid day light like black holes, somehow magically captured by pieces of wood and a few nails. She stood motionless at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes shifting from left to right as she watched the accident play like a movie in her mind. Her hand rested on the warm railing. She watched as they pulled him carefully from the car. She watched as the men tried to keep the crowd at a distance, their curiosity offending her. She watched in the silence of the old house, and tears, ones she had felt burn the skin of her cheeks so long ago, began to run from her eyes. The wooden floor, old and dry from years gone by, drank them greedily.

Lost in darkness and alone, Ryder drifted. He was present and absent, he was whole and yet incomplete. He drifted in thought and he drifted into dreams. There was no past, and no future. It was endless, dark and drifting. It was silent and somehow it was peaceful.

His fingers curled around something warm. Soft and assuring he held onto it with all he could comprehend. Warm, her hands in his, she held onto him, guided him and her voice surrounded him like a blanket as she spoke.

His eyes began blinking away the fading darkness. Brilliant and warm, the sunlight filtered through the trees. It mottled across his face, and across hers. Her eyes were brilliant, and as blue as any sky he could remember.