silhouettes — ;
With sleeping sun came shadow, with solitude came silence. Night settled across her form, the tips of its sprawled wings reaching to the pale moon. Its silhouette slipped through the spaces between the trees, darting in and out across her cheeks as it shivered, mirroring the licks of flame held in the stone chasm of her heart. With statued stature her back leaned against the building, she could have been missed for a shadow had it not been for the cigarette held between her fingers. The end of the length was still hot, the glowing center a lone firefly in the darkness.
Her anxiety left her in spews of smoke that escaped small ‘o’ formed by her parched lips. Once, twice, thrice -- jaded orbs followed the paths as they branched out like strings of thought; thin arms reaching out slowly to the light overhead. out of sight, out of mind in her cut off corner, The urge still unsettled the woman. Smoking was a habit of her father’s, not her’s. Yet somehow Yerim had found herself exiting out of a store with a pack of Marlboro and few hours later, about a quarter of the box had been emptied. She looked down at the cigarette. It suddenly began to look even more misplaced in her hand. A flick of the wrist, and the embers were stepped out. Yerim felt her lungs constrict, the ashes settling inside.
Haste had made waste and had left her with a bitter aftertaste to clean up from her tongue.
( Ugh. )
The rustling of leaves shook her back to her senses. Her chest tightened at the sound, her spine straightened itself along the wall. Hardened eyes darted this way and that, searching.
( Breathe. )
“Who’s there?”