Her fingers were gnarled, sore and stiff. Shoulders hunched against the cold wind that embraced her. A wind that cared for nothing, no one.

Glasses balanced on her nose, the red of the small sweater filled her field of view.

She continued to knit.

As she always did.

She wondered who might one day buy this tiny knitted thing. It seemed that no one bought anything anymore. They walked on by, they looked, or looked away, they shot their photos, and, embarrassed, walked away.

She was nothing to them. These people that walked on by.

She remembered that day, so long ago, when the wind was not a wind, but a warming breeze. That day, she had sat on the bench. In that park.

And yes, she had been working away on the tiny red sweater even then.

Intent on her work she had not seen them approach. But she knew.

He, the tall man with those cold blue eyes, felt her slim fingers tighten in his palm, the nails drawing blood in thin lines. Those delicate fingers he knew so well, that even in the heat of that late summer afternoon, felt cold, brittle.

And, he knew why.

He heard, felt, her catch her breath. He looked at her. Light hair blowing in that gentle breeze, and he saw her turn and look at the bench.

He knew who she would see, even before his eyes joined hers.

It was her. Again.

That feeling came back to him, some long buried sense of duty, fear, emptiness. He could not quite place it. It was just there, it always was.

She felt him recoil slightly as with her fingers she tightened her grip on his hand, that big hand, the hand she both wanted and feared. She felt the wind in her hair as she sensed him turn to look at her. Her eyes were fixed on the woman on the bench.

That same sense of longing filled her. If only he could feel what she felt.

For now, she felt the wind in her hair.

He could not look again at the woman on the bench. Not again.

She paused, her fingers gripping his, she turned to the woman on the bench. She bent lower, with her free hand she brushed her hair away from her eyes.

She knew what she wanted to say.

As she remembered this, the look in the woman’s eyes as she brushed away the hair from her face, she paused in her knitting. Shivered against the cold. And against it all.

The words she wanted to speak would not come, despite the warm summer wind, she shivered, as if a cold wind had swept across the park. She looked at the woman, their eyes met. They both knew then, that nothing would ever be the same. But, that it would always be. Nothing more.

He saw this, turned away, gazed across the park to the river. he knew that it was over.

She sighed, and continued to knit.

As she always did.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day nine)