Faces

I look at your face, so close to mine, yet you are a stranger. I guess you’re older than me, by at least a decade. Your shirt is immaculately laundered and I can tell your sweater is expensive, cold blue cashmere, slung around your shoulders pashmina style. You catch my eye and smile; I’m surprised and embarrassed to be caught out. I try and pretend I wasn’t staring after all, but you aren’t fooled. What do you think of me I wonder? Do I come across as sophisticated? Attractive? Do you look at me and wonder why I’m alone or do you know? Do you think I’m slovenly? That I’ve lost my looks, a fading beauty, a woman who no longer cares. Our faces tell our individual stories if you take the time to read them. I don’t want to talk, I’m tired and my heart is heavy. I’ve so much on my mind right now, I sit back and try to relax, sipping vodka and tonic and crunching on tiny ice cubes. I put my drink down on the table, and watch the soft bubbles float upward, I feel your gaze and sneak a peek through my overlong fringe, are you about to speak? Possibly ask me if I’d like another drink; wear me down with small talk until I warm to you. Maybe you see the unstoppable tears forming in my eyes, you suspect my sadness and think you can make it all better. But my plastic tumbler flies off the flimsy table, sending cold sticky fluid cascading through the air. I’m thrust forward smashing my forehead, crushing my chest then back again snapping my neck, the pain floods through me and the lights flicker on and off, I hear the screams now, shrill and loud, one long note, I look at you, you are staring open mouthed at me, we are together and it wasn’t even planned. As our plane hurtles into a terrifying downward spiral and a frozen dread captures us and removes us from everything normal and human, we both realise that the last faces we will ever see will be each other's.