By Leslie Lindsay

Working on something new to piece into my novel-in-progress, this is meant to show Steve, a biomedical engineer’s obession with his first-love, Annie.  Let me know your thoughts! 

“The only thing I know is promises should have been made.  A contract, an algorithm of love: 

Girlfriend says she needs spaceàbreak-up.  End of relationship.

Option Two:

Girlfriend says she needs spaceàgive her space but not too much. Keep her hanging in your world.  Because you love her too damn much. 

It’s like the fine art of balancing a chemical equation.  God, but Annie hated chemistry.  She was the entropy agent, blasting into the relationship generating thermodynamic heat, a contrast between order and disorder. 

I will her into my mind, fast-forwarding the years. Annie is small, delicate, frail.  She sits in a chair at a sunny window.  Her hands are mottled with age spots, prominent veins blistering blue and purple.  I cup her hand with my own, watching it transform before my eyes—youthful, slender straight fingers spread forth.  I lean in and kiss her cheek.  “You’re only getting better,” my voice raspy, riddled with emotion.  She looks up at me, blue eyes glassy.  I clasp a necklace around her, brushing her gray hair from the back of her neck.  She shivers as she turns to face me.  A beautiful woman. Mine. 

Again, and again.  And again.”

[This is a work of fiction.  Working title, “Slippery Slope.”  Please do not share or take this original work as your own without person.  Thank you!]