Short story: Under the leafless Oak tree

You are silent, like me. You don't talk much, You don't feel the need to express everything in words.

You are silent, sitting here with me, on this park bench, under this leafless Oak tree. Between us there is no need for words. You just look at me.

You have a handful of blueberries in your palm. The last bounty of an already gone summer. I don't know from you where you found them. You are eating them one by one, as if to savour the taste of each of them. You look at me and silently offer me one.

Unlike her.

She would have said a million things about the berries by now. From "Ooooh darling, don't they remind you of little blue gems" to "OH! That's sour" scrunching up her face. You eat your berries knowing they are berries and nothing else. The sourness doesn't take you by surprise. For her each berry would be a new experience, always exclaimed in words. For you they are berries. You just look at me.

How I revel in the silence!. It's getting colder now, each evening. Trees are mere skeletons of what they used to be. I can see two last leaves hanging from the tip of an Oak branch, about to get caught in the wind, about to fall to the ground. She would by now, have cried in sympathy for the leafless trees. You just look at me instead.

With you, there is peace. I need not ask for silent time. I need not ask for time for my own. You understand. You are like me. We are like these two last Oak leaves drifting in the wind.

There is a slight breeze coming from the East. The trees are waving their branches as if saying goodbye to the summer. It soothes my soul to just sit here with you in this silence. She would have by now, held on to my shoulder shouting "Oh darling, isn't it romantic?". We just look at each other instead.

In a while, I have to get up from this bench and leave you, to her, where I call hearth and home. I have to leave this companionable silence and go where there is always noise. Where everything needs to be spoken aloud.

In just a little while, as the moon comes up, I have to get up from this bench and leave you under this leafless Oak tree, eating blueberries.

She would be waiting for me.