The woman looked on as the man struggled to remove his gold
band. After a few minutes of watching
him grapple, she raised a hand and dismissed him. He stepped out onto empty streets, groping
for a glimmer of light in his dark state.
His legs took him towards the tallest building as images began to appear
in his head as in clips from an old movie - a scene from the beachside of two
young children in the sand, with a beautiful woman with blue eyes watching over
them. Another clip from a different era,
a bubbly young woman with round cheeks and laughing eyes in a gorgeous wedding
dress beside him as he walked her down the aisle.
Lost in his memory flashes he did not see two policemen
approach him with caution. Before he
realized, he found himself in the back of the police car. At the station he sat on a hard bench running
his hands through his thinning gray hair.
He noticed the digital clock on a desk flip over to 2am, 3am and an hour
after that he was escorted to a small room.
As he sat in an uncomfortable chair behind a squeaky table, a tall officer
began his barrage of questions. But he had no answers
to give. Sweat ran down his temples in
the tiny stuffy room intermingling with his desperate tears. His left knee shook uncontrollably while he tried
to steady himself by setting his elbows on the table. He shook his head and repeatedly asked for
his wife until his head collapsed down into his hands.
After a few silent moments with just the rustle of papers the officer leafed through, he asked the man to remove the gold band from his
finger. The man looked up confused , then threw his hand in the air and stood up. He tried
to oblige but, just as before, the ring refused to slip out. Several minutes passed as the policeman left
the room and returned with a bottle of petroleum jelly. With greasy hands, the ring slipped out
easily and the officer examined it, finding the initials of the man reported
missing.
As a new day began with the radiant sunlight bathing the
city with its warmth, the man stepped out into the light. He stood on top of the stairs and watched a
woman with blue eyes climb up with speed.
He opened his arms and she fell into them as his head buried in her
white hair. With muffled cries he exclaimed,
“Lost no more”.
The End
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