I sit alone stirring my coffee turning cold. There is no reason to stir, I always drink my coffee black but the sound of the spoon hitting the porcelain masks the persistent drumming of rain against the fogged-up window.
I know you will not come; not this time, not ever. Soon I will leave the café where we met so many heart-beats ago.
But I also know there are moments caught between heart-beats. moments when I still can hear your laughing at my rotten French pronunciation. In those moments I imagine that spring might bring you back.
I rub my hands against each other feeling the reek of lilies.
You hated lilies, but I could not muster up the courage to bring roses to your grave.
Roses are for lovers, but you had left me long before you passed.
Long before I killed you.
Kiss by the Hotel de Ville by Robert Doisneau
Today it’s Prosery again at dVerse, where we write prose in 144 words or less, or exact as in this case. We also have to include a line from a poem which today is selected by Kim from a poem by Louis MacNeice, entitled ‘Coda’.
The line is: ‘There are moments caught between heart-beats’…
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February 17, 2020
Björn Rudbergs writings 
And a very fitting coda it is too.
Wow. Spectacular Bjorn!
Oh, that’s very chilling. I hope he chokes on that coffee.
I think your character will come out to seek him… Maybe she is really there by the corner of the room.
That would be interesting…
I love the title, the photo – black and white photographs like this are my favourites – and the setting, Björn! The sound of the spoon and the ‘drumming of rain against the fogged-up window’ prepare your reader for what is to come. You built in the twist so well, with the lightness of the paragraph about ‘laughing at my rotten French pronunciation’ that I almost believed that spring might bring her back, and then I read the chilling last line.
Thank you… I didn’t even know where the story would end when I started to write it…
I know that feeling – and then the story writes itself!
Moving piece, with just the right amount of intrigue.
So masterfully done. I love the coffee stirring to mask the sound of rain, his sure knowledge she will not return, all the little clues that support what totally surprised me, that last line!
Passion can lead to vicious ends.
Excellent story with a great twisty ending.
You and Lillian, masters of flash crime fiction. Yours really conjures international intrigue, like an episode of TWILIGHT ZONE. Great sense of place and sophisticated cold-blooded evil.
Oh–wonderful. I did not see that twist coming! (I actually did not read the title till after.) I love the details.
oh my goodness, he is a cold hearted one, is he also is clever in covering his tracks?
Yikes! I didn’t see that end coming…she probably didn’t either!
You had me almost in tears for him until the last line!
Yipes!!! Oh boy. Quite the twist with the end there Björn. Awesome.
Pat
Great twist!
An interesting twist!
I love the part about the scent of the flowers on his hands. I believe he is still in love with her. Just as I believe he is hopelessly insane.
This so fits the tragedy of love gone strange, a true Parisian tortured love as novels tell, and also the insanity of non-recognition, he cannot see what he can see. So enjoyed the twist Bjorn and the dark.
Masterly done. First it feels sweet and romantic, then the twist right at the end. So you have to start over again to really know what the story is
all about.
so dark and twisted … a master!
Fantastic twist in that last line. I did not see it coming and it hits so sharply.
Wow! A tale of love turns acerbic…
Poised perfectly.
Wow! You really built up that suspense perfectly. Love it.
OH MY GOSH! What a double shocker ending! I was so enthralled — mesmorized is a better word, with the spoon stirring and into this person’s mind and then bam! She’s dead and bam! again: he killed her! WOW!