SAYING NO

 

No, he said.
It seemed to echo.
No...
It echoed but somehow did not resonate.
It came from his head not from his heart.
No, he said again, and it came in a more solid form.
More confident.
A bit more steely.
Though a moment later  his heart melted.
He watched the moment going away from him, like the escalator in the underground, always descending, going away...
Forever.
Thinking of it much later, it was as if he stood on the shore of a lake into which he had once thrown a stone. The splash was long gone. The stone was now buried deep in the mud below.
But still, and endlessly, the soft ripples of disturbance kept coming towards him.

Published in FLASH FICTION NORTH  August 2020