she was painting her toenails when she got the news. struggling with the lid of the nail polish, she answered on the fourth ring.

before it sank in fully, she had already dropped the phone.

the color drained from the room, ebbing from the lamp shades and the curtains, dulling the upholstery and the carpet to a muted glow. suffocation squeezed her heart like a myriad of tiny tightening ribbons punctuated by an adder's persistent sting. mutely she stared at the nail polish in its bottle, glossy red droplets dripping down the side from the hastily replaced brush. a litany ran through her head like a series of commandments. i will not eat. i will not sleep. i will not talk. i will not breathe.

she marvelled at the puppeteer controlling her body as it stood up and briefly wondered if it was god.

a soft, warm sponge gently wiped her mind clean. the objects she encountered no longer had definition in form or function. dazedly she stepped outside and tried to recollect what the object in her driveway was before dismissing the effort. she sat on the bench, tracing her finger along the chipped paint of its hard wooden surface, watching a small drop of blood pool up where a sliver of wood had entered, she tilted the finger back and forth, watching the sun play with the dark red surface. she sat there some time. she shifted on the bench; it felt hard, real, uncomfortable.

quietly the forms around her regained their outlines and again had substance, suffused with painfully over-bright hues, overtaking her consciousness like wind over blades of grass, gently bending each thought, leaving brief impressions that hardened into wooden memories. her mind now raced with the quiet din of what had come to pass.

a new litany began. i loved. i was loved. i love still.