\nWord Count: 375<\/p>\n
Bad enough to have her living in an upstairs room in the southernmost corner of his mind. He\u2019d locked the door but sometimes she snuck out a window. She would dance upon the porch roof and draw attention from strangers who walked by. They\u2019d stop and watch a little while, entranced by the way she moved, like parasols drifting on a breeze.<\/p>\n They\u2019d been lovers many years ago. They\u2019d met at a bistro in Alsace where parakeets<\/a> perched upon the open beams listening in and then repeating all the whispered words of seduction they had heard. They\u2019d watched one man who always sat alone, an ear cocked to the parakeets and when he felt he could remember, came in one evening and sat down at a table where a lonely woman with sad wet eyes was sipping at a coffee.<\/p>\n He and she had laughed at the man\u2019s practiced lines but were delighted when the woman wiped the last tear away and smiled. He had claimed the woman had been cheated. She insisted all was fair in love and war.<\/p>\n He had thought she understood that his time with her was transient. She had thought he realized that to lay with her was life. She kept him caught on silken sheets with each night making love.<\/p>\n He flew across an ocean and the years wheeled slowly past. She spent her first few months alone and spinning. He never married though he thought of her sometimes but cars and good times filled the empty chambers in his heart.<\/p>\n Middle-age brought with it reminiscence and regrets and as he opened doors she crept inside. It was at the oddest time, the oddest places, that he heard the twittering of parakeets. He thought it only memory for a while.<\/p>\n It got loud and louder and started taking over nights and days. He couldn\u2019t sleep, he couldn\u2019t shake the feelings off in morning light. And then he heard her laughing and he knew.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THREADS Word Count: 375 He felt the tugging at his sleeve sometimes and brushed away the silk threads that she\u2019d woven onto his arm. He didn\u2019t mind that they were trailing on the floor behind him. He didn\u2019t know that … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/012.jpg\" "\\"Premier")
<\/a>He felt the tugging at his sleeve sometimes and brushed away the silk threads that she\u2019d woven onto his arm. He didn\u2019t mind that they were trailing on the floor behind him. He didn\u2019t know that they clung to all the places<\/a> that he\u2019d been.<\/p>\n