Saturday, April 27, 2013

The Letter Ex

I could see them standing inside the xyst but from where I was down on the lawn below it was impossible to hear what they were saying or even try to read their lips. I was dying inside to know what the outcome was going to be. It had been too many years of agony on his part and she wasn’t in a much better situation. Their collective misery was a recipe for catastrophe. I was afraid the culmination of that chaos was set to diffuse within minutes.

With a look around I decided to see if I could get a better vantage point to maybe sneak a listen. With trepidation in my steps I edged closer to the covered portico where they stood about a foot apart from each other. I took no more than two steps then watched as she stepped backwards from where he was standing. He immediately reciprocated the gesture and took another step toward her. I stood stoic as she took yet another step back. Her motions were definitive and he didn’t mirror them.

Instead, he hung his arms at his sides in a loose manner and I watched his shoulders hunch over ever so slightly as his head dropped into his open, ascending palms. With her attention full on him, I decided to make another approach and took a small sideways step closer to the stone stairs that rose to meet the entrance of the garden path. Neither of them flinched or turned to look at me so I covered a little more ground. They were almost out of view but I assumed I would be at a better listening advantage.

I sat down on the third step from the top but all I heard was silence. Not a peep came from the other side of the long corridor of trees where he and she stood facing each other. I was anxious but didn’t want to make my presence known. After what felt like an hour, with nothing to hear or see, I had to admit defeat in my eavesdropping endeavors. I got up and started to make my way all the way across the lawn, toward the guest quarters, west of the main house and xyst.

Posted for April 2013 A to Z Blog Challenge X is for Xyst

The above story is fiction.

4 comments:

Judi FitzPatrick said...

Love this snippet of some people's lives. And what a great Scrabble word!
Love you, Mum

Jenn Flynn-Shon said...

That's exactly what I thought while writing it - ooh if I played this on a triple...

heehee love you

Jak said...

Damn you for making me look up Xyst! lol Awesome X word (and I like the word play in the Title... I fancy titles/headings).

That poor guy :( I don't think anything good came from that encounter.

I will so use Xyst in Scrabble! My mother keeps trying to beat me and I will slap her with this newfound vocabulary knowledge! ;-)

Jenn Flynn-Shon said...

haha, well I like to expand the lexicon of other writers :-) Glad you looked it up! Thanks for the props on my title, that was something I was going for - double meaning.

X is my favorite letter in the alphabet so I wanted to make sure this day's post was as unique as possible. Good luck in Scrabble!