Interlude

The wind slices your cheek but you don't notice. You don't notice that you're being thrown about, hips banging, sometimes on this end of the hand rest, sometimes on that. Outside, there is nothing to see, except darkness and wind and rain, and the occasional light that looks like a hovering orb. 

Your head throbs. 

You think things that you're not supposed to think but you convince yourself it's alright because no one can see inside your head except you. Images of what could be, flashes of what could have been, and what makes it all the more sad is the conviction of knowing it will never happen. 

It's ridiculous how dangerous snippets of conversation can be. 

And then later, when you're staring into the bright glare of the computer screen, you realise that it really is possible to be winded by written words, to be hit by them, to have them twist around in your gut like the sharp metal shards of a broken sword. 

It's like falling in love with ink, except more.