How Like the Ring
In zero gravity he played a game with my wedding ring, throwing it at my finger and seeking to snare it, me trying to catch it on my outstretched finger. A game of horseshoes and hearts, he said, and we laughed.
How like the ring we were. Our ship was drifting through the stars, (A ring drifting towards another home,) passing billions of stars. When I first came on board, I knew that I would need a husband, a father for the children we would populate our new home with, and so amongst the passengers he and I drifted towards each other.
He told me he would always love me when he put it on my hand. He said he would take care of me, and I would have nothing to be afraid of.
How many times he has sent the ring towards me and I failed to catch it. How lucky I was when it landed on my finger that first time.
Like our ring so often has, our ship missed its course, and so for many months our arrival was delayed, and we began to prepare for the life we would be bringing into the world. Patrick, if it was a boy, Patricia if it was a girl. But like our ship, something in our love seemed to have shifted, and I found the messages he'd sent to his lover, the hidden plans they'd made together.
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Strangely it was him that cried, and he begged me to forgive, so that when all I wanted was to die I had to choose between his so painful love, and... loneliness.
Now our spaceship drifts above an alien world, we've seen it on our screen, images of the place where Patrick will grow up, my child, and he drifts across our room from me, sending my ring drifting across the room toward my outstretched finger. How often it bounces off and spins away into the darkness, and we laugh at our little game, unhappy.
"I love you," he says, not in words but in looks, asking if I can say the same, and tell him I forgive him. I know what I would say if I could speak, but I look away, and he collects the ring to throw again. As it drifts towards me I wonder if I can ever say the thing he wants to hear, and I'm afraid. But the words are whispered in my heart, and the ring goes bouncing away into the shadows as I shudder at the pain.
How like the ring we are, drifting here in this empty space, a space in which our eyes can no longer meet because I am afraid.
The End
This story was first published on Tuesday, January 17th, 2017
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4.3 Rocket Dragons Average
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