Dark shadows...

As I watched him stand by the lamppost with the collars drawn up to keep the cold and peering eyes away, I realised that along with the misty breath he let out into the dim light awarded by the street and a lone window above, which housed a familiar quarrelling couple, so familiar that one never stopped and looked around with an attempt to pin the source of the sudden noise which could have been a gunshot, if we still believed that people owned muskets, or a vessel thrown to span a few meters and the dawning worthlessness of a marriage which was intended to keep them happy, in all that countable sources of light, Brince's breath stood heavy and grey and at places yellow where the heaviness managed to hold the lightness of sodium vapour lights, for that breath carried all the force of his patience and belief that she would come, although they all said she wouldn't and even those who mocked at him so long and sharp had left to find better and more responsive entertainment, although he knew that she was at a party tonight, although he knew that the silhouette he saw outside David's house was hers as it bent forward and kissed him and followed him into his house, although he knew that she had broken up with David and was seen on Sly's arm yesterday, Sly's silver covered arm which also helped cover those hit marks, although he knew it all, although he knew her promise of coming was in the same tone with which she had promised the pastor his twenty hail Mary's, he waited and would wait as long as his breath could hold itself up in front of him in the light that shone from above, for all that lay beneath that breath was dark and dead and he feared walking away from under the post, feared that he might find his heart amidst the morbid remains of his life....