"It is easier to say yes," he said, gray rumination moving over his fissured face like a low cloud. "I believe that is true - to accept, rather than negate. This is something my father - my God - taught me. To bow to Yes and to Please, and to shun No. Ironic, then, that we were so forced to inhabit a void of sound. And I haven't yet explained the reason for that, either."
The sky overhead, smoky, choked with still-dark cumulus. The sun hummed through the spaces between them, probing at their weaknesses. The scene became mottled, the puddles rippling with the last furious gasps of wind.
"We were silent out of deference," he said finally. "Out of respect for her." Out of his breast pocket, the old man unsheathed a pen & pushed it towards the woman. "If you wouldn't mind, I would like to see your name."
She stared at it, laying between them, glinting. He had given her no paper. She picked it up & clumsily extended her hand, tattooing herself on the back of it - one word, her name, & showed him.
He smiled. "It is a beautiful-looking name. I wish that I knew how it sounded, as I have never before been acquainted with it." He met her eyes. Something behind them she saw glowing like slag in a blast furnace, smelting, fusing together -
"Eliane," she spoke, delivering each syllable purposefully. She tasted each letter in her mouth as if she never had, shocked at her own voice. Her tongue felt numb, dry, as though electrified. She swallowed, and tasted lightning.
The old man shuddered from the stomach first, arcing his spine, baring his throat as her name rioted through him. Eliane watched him, unable to suppress her fear for his well-being. He opened his eyes, finally, & choked out a brittle laugh, barely a rough whisper. "... beautiful ..." he rasped. "Beautiful." He turned to one side and messily spat a gobbet of blood. a trail of it drooled from the corner of his mouth, and, straightening, he rubbed at it with his sleeve, still smiling - still, smiling.
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