The Love Test

Genre: General
Word Count: 291
(A/N: Man, I haven't posted here for a long time and I feel sort of bad about it. Here's a short little piece I wrote back during school. I hope you like it.)

I had never really noticed the photograph before, but when I asked about it, Ellen said that it had been there since the day after the funeral three weeks before we had gotten married. I guess I ought to believe her, but still I can’t quite reconcile that I could have missed it all these years.

There was that lithe body stretched along the grass, melding artistically into the gentle curve of the hill. The laughing face, the bouncing hair—almost pushing against the clear plastic of the picture frame—the careless eyes wide with mirth. Her mouth was spread, lips ringing that effortless smile, so full and moist.

Her body was smooth and slender, the bare legs crescendoing into that healthy, developed frame on which her fierce intellect rested confidently.

The sun shone warmly, the wind blew softly; the shoots of grass all around bowed their pointed heads. She was just as I had remembered her.

I could sense Ellen coming up from behind me, and I could feel her eyes gazing along with mine.

“It’s a pity she died so young,” she said finally, and there was a tone of silent contentment that I had never quite heard in all our years.

“Why is this picture up?” I asked, at last banishing all the sweet fantasies evoked.

“You never took it down,” she said, as if that was explanation enough for the oddity.

“I’d never noticed it before,” I told her.

“I know that now,” she said, and then there was a sort of warmness in her voice that enfolded everything in its ecstasy. “I’ll take it down, if you want.”

“Yes,” I decided, letting it all go with a sigh, “that would be best.”