Choices

Rattling down the tunnel, swaying side to side, the fool sitting across the aisle removes his teeth and turns them into a hand puppet. "You have to let go to hold on," the hand tells him. The fool slumps over, the teeth falling from his hand and rattling around on the floor, out of sight but not out of mind. And then he's falling, falling while the wind whistles and roars its tribal refrain. Her face. He can feel her next to him, her arm touching his, and wonders if it's deliberate or accidental, if she would melt away if he tried to touch her, and all he can think of is his greatest fear: that what could be might not ever be, that he will be found wanting and will swerve at the last minute, avoiding her now and forever while she fades away into the night.

Sort of a funny story behind this little blurb; I had the second half of it that I'd scribbled down earlier in the night, but I didn't quite know how to start it. Then, when I got on the 3 train to come home, there was this lady with a beer can in one hand and her dentures in the other. And then, as Stephen King says in On Writing, pow!

Oh, and in case you're wondering, she didn't actually drop them. She did drop the beer can she was holding, though.