It's Still Life

2 of 27 Ashwine – a Colour once felt, not seen—the warmth you almost touched.

2 of 27: Ashwine

Felreil steps through the broken arch of the chapel—not as a pilgrim, but as someone answering a question no one remembers asking—wooden shutters rattle as the wind forgets itself—and she sits in the front pew, maybe twenty years old, maybe timeless, her eyes closed—not in prayer, but in preservation.

Her hand rests on a stack of letters—read and reread—ink faded but still clinging to a name no longer said aloud.

Felreil does not speak, and neither does she, but when her breath catches—half sigh, half sob—he hears it: the sound of a song she once sang behind a door that never opened.

He kneels beside her, not touching, only near, and the warmth of his presence is the first thing she’s felt since the boy who never came back stopped haunting her shadow.

She opens her eyes, but not to see him—only to watch something leave: a memory not erased, but softened at the edges, the way grief ages into a kind of devotion.

When Felreil stands, the chapel smells of melted paraffin and memory, and as he steps back into the dusk, the wind moves through the shutters—trying not to laugh in church.

---

Want to go deeper with Ashwine? The long-form liturgy for this Colour is here: Read Ashwine – The Warmth You Almost Touched (the liturgy is a stream-of-consciousness poem. If you haven’t read the brief Prologue (or Before) post, it be useful in understanding this series.

Previous Instalments – To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link

Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “Rattle”.  Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2025.