THE WEIGHT OF A DIAMOND

The harbour was at its most generous that night.

Light spilled across the water in long, trembling ribbons, the city glittering as though it had dressed itself expressly for us. Champagne rose in pale, frantic bubbles, glasses refilled before they were empty, before desire had time to cool.

When he reached across the table and enclosed my hand within his own, the gesture felt ceremonial-an act rehearsed by history itself.

The diamond weighed more than it should have.

Ten carats, immaculate, merciless.

It caught the harbour lights and fractured them into obedient rainbows, each prism sharp enough to cut. I saw in it the promise of beginnings, of love renewed, and in the glint-almost imperceptibly-the hint of danger, the subtle whisper that...

WHERE BLOOD LIES BRIGHT, NOTHING IS UNTOUCHED.

He slid it onto my finger slowly, reverently, as though crowning me.

His gaze never left my face. That gaze-so attentive, so possessive-had once made me feel chosen.

It was a re-proposal.

Ten years had passed since the first time we stood here as young adults, giddy with ambition, reckless with belief. He had been the chaser then, radiant with attention, relentless in affection. Love had arrived like a fever-hot, consuming, unquestioned.

I had mistaken pursuit for protection.

In the decade between, he had become my husband-and not once my faithful one. Again and again, he strayed. Each betrayal was delivered alongside an apology so exquisitely shaped it resembled care.

I forgave him each time.

Forgiveness became my vocation, my daily labour.

With every absolution, something was pared away from me-so finely, so carefully, that I did not feel the blade.

Now we had returned to the beginning.

His new proposal felt strangely hollow, baron, as if the words had been spoken too many times to carry blood any longer. Yet still, I felt the old excitement stir. The hope of alteration. For a gentler life with this "new" him. Redemption by repetition. He spoke of change with eloquence, with conviction.

I listened.

I wanted to listen.

"My future," he said, lifting his glass.

The diamond flashed.

That was when then knocking began.

Soft. Tentative. Almost polite.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

I turned toward the window.

Outside stood a man swaddled in rags, his body bent into itself as though attempting escape from hunger. His coat hung in tatters, its seams burst and blackened with age. His beard clotted his face; his skin clung tightly to bone, stretched thin and grey as old parchment.

He pressed his hands against the glass, fingers splayed, nails split and dark with grime. His mouth moved urgently, soundlessly, each word shaped with terrible care. Beside him a pigeon. Its feathers were puffed and matted, one wing dragging slightly. Its eye-round, yellow, and ancient-fixed upon us with an intelligence that felt deliberate. It pecked at the glass sharply.

Tap. Tap.

Then it flapped its wings in sudden, frantic, bursts, feathers striking the window with a dry, rattling sound.

"Darling?" my husband said. "You look awfully pale."

I could not answer.

The man outside leaned closer. His breath fogged the glass where his lips pressed too hard. I could not hear him, yet I understood him utterly. Hunger has a voice that requires no sound.

"I need to freshen up," my husband said at last; as if to dismiss the possibility that he in some way might catch a disease through the dividing glass. He rose, kissed my diamond encrusted finger and fled.

His aftershave bloomed- citrus and wood, wealth and authority.

"Don't go anywhere."

The door closed.

The private dining room felt suddenly cavernous, obscene in its warmth.

I remained seated, the diamond throbbing faintly, as though alive.

Outside, the man's mouth worked faster now, panic, contorting his jaw.

The pigeon hurled itself against the glass, once, twice-its beak striking hard enough to leave a faint crackling sound. I lifted my glass of water.

My throat had closed entirely. I wondered, with a sudden and dreadful clarity, what it would be like to starve. To feel ones body consume itself.

Pity surged-raw, aching, but beneath it coiled fear. The old fear. The fear of proximity. Of how easily misfortune might leap the distance between glass and skin.

When I looked back, the man's eyes had found mine.

They burned.

Please, I thought. Or perhaps remember.

Footsteps.

My husband returned.

He sat down heavily, the chair groaning beneath him. As he moved, something spilled from his pockets-feathers, dark and wet, tumbling across the floor.

They left streaks.Then came the drops of blood, thick and dark, blooming on the polished wood, catching the lamplight-the diamond catching it too, brilliant, indifferent, where blood lies bright, unnoticed until now.

"Did you see that bird?" he asked mildly.

I looked at his hands.

They were skeletal now, the skin pulled tight and bluish, veins standing out like cords. His fingers were elongated, joints swollen, nails sharp and rimmed with black. And his suit-Gone.

In its place hung prison rags, stiff with filth and age, crusted in places with something I did not wish to name. The stench reached me then-old sweat, rot-the smell of a body long denied mercy.

I gagged and turned away.

When I looked back at the window, the old man was gone.

The pigeon lay torn open upon the railing, its small body split, entrails slick against metal, feathers plastered red and trembling in the breeze.

I understood.

"You cheated again," I said stupidly, reaching for the only language I knew.

He smiled-the same wicked smile he had worn through apologies and vows and nights I could not sleep.

"You always cling to the wrong detail darling".

His hands casting shadows across the table resembled a ghost not a man.

"You said you loved me".

"I do, he said softly, Ive travelled across oceans of time just to be with you".

He stood. His shadow stretched grotesquely across the wall, lengthening, bending, assuming the unmistakable outline of the man who had knocked-the beggar, the hunger, the thing left outside.

"I did not become this," he murmured. "Its not me, I am, I mean, you would be lucky to have me!

I clawed at the ring. It would not move.

"Good, take it off," he demanded. "You don't deserve it!"

He lurched at me.

His grip was iron. His breath carrion.

The lights flickered. The harbour moaned.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

-

I do not remember leaving.

I remember losing everything.

Years later-or perhaps only yesterday-I stood outside that same window. The restaurant still glowed, warm and indifferent. Inside, a couple laughed. Champagne frothed. A diamond caught the light.

I wore rags.

My hands were cracked and bleeding from the cold. My coat smelled of sleep and rain and failure. In pressed my palms to the glass, and time folded- then and now collapsing into one cruel reflection.

I knocked.

Softly.

Tap. Tap.

Inside, no one turned.

He was gone.

Gone from the window, gone from the harbour, gone from the life he had devoured until it devoured him in return. I do not know where such men go when they are finished. Perhaps the ocean carries them away back to were they came, back to where they should never have left, back to where time stands still.

A pigeon settled beside me.

It watched.

And in the glass- this window of yesteryear and today- I saw myself at last, standing where I had always been, my feathers bright and incandescent, asking for nothing but to be remembered, where blood lies bright.

~Mpowerusleeza~