Stillness. Silence. Secrets. Sunlight.

The parlor was completely empty.

The thick, dense carpet silenced any sound that dared drop to the floor.

The sunlight drifting through the window revealed the only visible motion:

  the motes, swirling and suspended in light, headed neither up nor down. Lost in space. Lost there, right in front of her.

The man next to her, the man touching the top of her hand, he leaned slightly toward her and whispered his great secret.

Inside of her: those few words cut inside of her like a finely sharpened filet knife. 

Through the young, pale skin. through the subcutaneous fat, slicing through the fascia and through the lateral abdominal muscles. they cut through the dark and mysterious, lively cavity and cut through to her spine, severing the bundle of nerves at the middle of her back. Her movement was gone, paralyzed by his secret.

Stillness. Silence. Sunlight.