Collateral Damage

They had left the theater flustered, with that uncomfortable silence that truths establish when they insert themselves between us without warning; a silence exacerbated by the falling snow, which had surprised the city for the third night running, covering it in a fragility that presaged a transparency that neither of them were accustomed to.

The French playwright of Lebanese extraction whose name they wouldn't remember had received five minutes of deserved applause but they didn't hear it. During the ovation, Lali was putting on her mink coat and beaming forced smiles at the known faces in the box; Ramon, impatient, stared at the tips of his loafers.