Arid Continents

He wanted to wait to find a longer word, for one to shred through her fingers and on the floor where he could catch it first. Once he did, it would be no one else's but his. For her, the most important thing was holding in between her cupped hands the secret of her worry which was invisibly scratching one palm then leaving a tickle there while it scratched and satisfied the other. He felt her concentration dim. So he pressed on, pressing his back into the grainy seat, his feet unrolling on the kept carpet, his eyelids held back as forcelessly as he could so the two earths inside would not revolve. Too long, and continents in daylight would turn into deserts.

She stretched out her fingers like a peacock would its tail feathers, but still held her palms together, the rolling stones of them holding.

She looked from the carpeted chasm between her shoes to him, earths to earths, oases to oases, bringing withering lands closer by centimetres.