Impression (written in 1994 in England)

She slept as the darkened hills slipped by the windows into a blur. Silent breaths pumped out to fog the glass under her pillowed head. I watched her silently as my busy hands sketched her image into the paper.

            The train coasted out of the lights of  small towns into the golden hues of sunset. It was there into my silence, came a murmur. From her lips murmured the name of someone lost in pronunciation in the clickity clack of the rails. She trembled and clutched at the short rough blanket that had mostly fallen from her body.

            She woke suddenly gasping, then fell quickly silent and flushed as she saw I was staring. The blood rose to my face as I  guiltily looked away out of my own window.

In the reflection, I could see her now staring into nothing over quivering lips hugging her pillow like a small child. The moon rose and shed waning light off its crescent as the mist wisps turning white swinging wide of the rush of our train.

            A murmur of misery brought me back to her reflection as she bit her lip hard in order to hold back the pain. Her shifting eyes betrayed her letting loose in rivulets of tears on her cheeks. I found myself walking across the swaying car to sit down by her now

hunched body. She had hidden her face behind her hands muffling her sobs. She jerked and shivered as I put my coat around her and held her to me. She looked at me in apology and said "I miss.." but couldn't finish, I said "I know."

            We sat there for an eternity saying nothing, looking somewhere else. She suddenly cuddled against me and drifted off to sleep, serenity slowly returning to her face. I smiled and held her closer and looked out into the night knowing that neither of us were alone or strangers.

            I awoke in the warming sunlightstill holding the coat. She was gone and so was my sketchbook, but there was a rose-crushed in its place and a note...

            She wrote, "I don't even know your name and there is no way I can repay your kindness and love. I hope I can find the strength in your pictures, please take the rose as a trade. Thank you, Vanessa."

            It was at that moment I felt on my cheek a faint impression of a kiss.