It's Still Life

11 of 27: Drowndusk – Love buried beneath duty

A Six Sentence Requiem

Elira’s hands move through dishwater like archivists—scrub, rinse, stack; across the kitchen, Jonan sits sidewise at the table, lost in the morning newspaper, sipping coffee that’s as smooth as the wedding band she never takes off.

Felreil doesn’t hide in the shadows; he is the shadow—his presence a candle’s guttering—and he notes how her fingers graze the next plate, the way they grazed Jonan’s spine a while ago, a lifetime ago.

The word love dies in his throat, dissolves into a sip of black—dissolves into the space between their chairs, yawning wide as a museum hall where love’s artefacts are gathered under glass.

Felreil doesn’t pity their precision—the folded towels, the scoured plates—he venerates it: this liturgy of care that outlasts passion, these hands that chose duty long after desire forgot to knock.

The candle’s last gasp isn’t tragedy; it’s tender—a golden amen to the unsung hymn of promises kept—and when Felreil’s breath snuffs it out, the dark that follows isn’t empty: it’s full of the thousand small devotions that never asked to be seen.

Morning will come, and with it, the coffee, the dishes, the quiet—but for now, the kitchen holds its breath for a long minute, and the ghost of that lost touch lingers like a scent neither can name but both still breathe in.

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Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “minute”.  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.