the stranger
She cut into him again, specifying with mean-spirited venom another thing about him she was sick of.
Years ago, when they were first married he would have reacted. Instead he just let it pass and filed it away, another brick in the wall.
“She’s not herself, it’s the illness speaking.” he thought to himself, trying his very best to detach and stay positive.
Later that afternoon in the park he saw a young couple walking hand in hand. Thier body language proclaimed loud and clear, “We are in love!”
He silently wished them all the best while whispering to himself,
“Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.” - R.F.
