Sometimes when your heart is hurting, all you can do is write. The prompt is from Angela Goff’s Visual Dare.
Even after fifty years of adventures, of hand-holding and dish-breaking, of her winding his watch and him ironing her newspaper, Solomon had thought she’d live forever.
“Set me as a seal upon your heart,” she used to sing, “as a seal upon your arm. For love is strong as death.”
She’d tease him about his name and those Bible verses. “They’re the naughty ones, y’know,” with a mock-demure look through eyelashes.
Now she lay inert, a madonna enwreathed with wires and an irritable chorus of machines.
“…something for the pain,” he said, again.
“Not long now.” The nurse removed the untouched lunch tray.
He held her transparent hand, traced deep blue deltas winding sluggishly to the pulse, that metronome keeping her here.
Solemnly, ceremonially, he detached each plug, then wound his arms around her. He laid his deep-furrowed cheek on her still breast and set his seal upon her heart.