Untitled (Flash Fiction Pt 3)

I turn off the reading light and sit down in the chair by the window. Through it I see a man walking a dog, the kind of dog built for running—long and slender and all muscle. Even in the dark I can tell it's the running kind. Even through my window. The man's cigarette tip glows red out there in the darkness. The dog urinates against a utility box.

Everything is quiet.

Then somewhere near me—behind and to my left, I think—my dead wife moves in the darkness. I feel her as much as I see her, even more so maybe. She's there in the shadows close to me. Right there next to the French china and our wedding picture from 1939. I know it even though I haven't actually turned my head.

Instead I watch the man and his dog recede past the streetlight and beyond toward the cross street. A winking ember follows them.