Seeing clearly

 

By JudyL

October 19, 2010

 

Length: 269 words

Response to Picture Challenge on Vin F&D list

*******

Watching them through this filthy window, I wonder once again why I remain in this dusty berg.

They stand there, holding an entire conversation, yet barely saying a word.

I wonder at their relationship, so seemingly effortless despite the short time they’ve been acquainted. There is respect and deference from both sides, given and taken. Each is willing to lead and follow when the time is right. Each accepts the other’s faults without criticism. I wonder why, how… And want more than anything to be on the receiving end of such a friendship.

But that’s not possible. It’s unlikely that those two would extend a hand of friendship to someone like me. I shall finish my time, get my pardon and leave at the end of thirty days. A drifter, a grifter, a gambler turned part-time lawman… fate is a fickle mistress to tease such as me with proof of such things.

I suppose I’ve been watching life through smudged glass, and now quite unfairly, the hand of fate has swiped it clean. I can see clearly what my life is missing and yet it is still out of reach, behind a sheet of glass.

I look back and the street is bare, they are gone, as if never there at all.

A chair scrapes across the floor and another creaks beside me. I look up and see them. A quirk of their lips, a gleam in their eyes. A bottle tipped, glasses filled. Acceptance.

Amazing.

Perhaps fate is not all that it seems. Perhaps this dusty berg just needs a chance.

“Care for a game of chance, gentlemen?”

The end

 

Feedback is cherished. JudyL

 

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