Damian Kestrelhart

The colonel's boots echoed on the polished marble of the hallway. It was a dry, firm, disciplined sound, like everything in his life. But that afternoon, when he crossed the threshold of his home, it wasn't the echo of his footsteps that shook him, but the warm silence that greeted him. The clock on the wall read six, and the golden light of the sunset filtered its last threads through the curtain.

She was there, as always, in the armchair by the window, knitting a scarf for no one. The yarn fell through her fingers as if counting days. She looked up when she heard him enter, and her smile was a field of poppies blooming among ruins

"You're early," she said, her voice seeming to hold the wind's secrets.

—I had permission. The general is away on a trip, he replied, taking off his cap with the respect one reserves for something sacred.

He sat across from her. His sun- and war-baked face had cracks where so many unspoken things had been trapped. But his eyes were still the same: serene, deep, faithful as an oath.

"Have you eaten anything today?" he asked, knowing the answer

She shook her head, barely. He stood up slowly, went to the kitchen, and returned with a cup of tea and two cookies. She looked at them as if he had brought her an offering from another world.

"You're not a cook," he joked, his voice cracking.

—And you don't know how to stop waiting for me.

She lowered her gaze. Sometimes they didn't speak at all. They understood each other in pauses, in gestures. They loved each other with the patience of those who have endured winters.

Twenty-seven years had passed since their wedding in a provincial church. He in his impeccable uniform, she in a dress she still kept in a trunk, scented with the past. Since then, their love only grew and grew.

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