A moment in Paris

The rain came down gently, almost as if it wasn’t raining at all. It was like a quiet presence that just lingered behind us, not knowing what it was watching.

The street lights sparkled with each step we took. The rays of each lamp bounced off her face with each stolen glance. If I was going to say something, I had to do it soon.

Eventually we made our way to a bench and sat down. Hannah drew close to me and we watched the stars and the moon dance by a waterway. She sighed and tightened her grasp on my left hand. It was time.

My free hand trembled and fondled the opening of my pant pocket. I never thought a two inch opening of cloth could feel like a cavernous divide of doubt, despair in longing. The moment my fingers touched the little felt box was akin to finding my own personal oasis. This was going to be my salvation. Or a source of all despair to the likes Pandora could only conjure.

But I had to try.

I pulled the box from my pocket and opened it with one hand.

“Hannah,” I whispered in her ear. “Will you marry me?”

The seconds scattered and sold their secrets to the water, the lights, the moon and the stars. Time lapsed and  retreated and every sensation in my body was amplified ten fold. My breath paced and my head openly mocked every auspicious morsel of minutia that my heart assigned meaning to.

Decades passed in the form of instants and eyes, as they moved slowly upward, highlighted an eternity of anything any human could ever dream for. Her lips fell like snow on my cheek and she took the ring and put it on her finger.

“Yes,” exulted Hannah.

Check out some of the other posts people wrote for this prompt:

1. The Sound of Silence | Through the Peacock’s Eyes
2. Listen to the silence | Master Of Disaster
3. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | JGTravels
4. Eight Things I Wish I Knew Before I Taught at a Boarding School | Kosher Adobo
5. The Sounds of Silence* | Icescreammama
6. underwood | yi-ching lin photography
7. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | Under the Monkey Tree
8. Moments | anonim0us
9. Moments | anonim0us
10. Silent Agony | Broken Light: A Photography Collective
11. Silent crimes | Speaking Voiceless
12. The Sound of Silence is a beautiful thing | Amanda Montomery
13. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | A mom’s blog
14. Hug Her Back | Fish Of Gold
15. Media Blackouts Insult My Intelligence | Bumblepuppies
16. As Loud as Silence | Chimerical Chicanery
17. Unspeakable | Musings of a Soul Eclectic
18. Aborted Words | The Backwords
19. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | carojesu
20. yesterday’s snow lets | y
21. A SILENT SONG | Diary of a mind
22. A Common Baby Myth: Babies Should Sleep in Silence.. Ssshhh! | Peek-a-boo: Baby and You!
23. Silence « mediumblackdog
24. Never Give Up, Never Give In: My Epiphany! | Hope and Faith
25. Brady’s Silence (explicit) | Stories From My Mind
26. Coyote Hill | The Seminary of Praying Mantis
27. A Silence Louder Than Words | snapshotsofawanderingheart
28. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | Tales from the Motherland
29. When The Silence Almost Deafens You | Unload and Unwind
30. Classy Broad
31. The Day I Found My Voice | A Path of Living Stones
32. When you said “Nobody loves you” | So Not Simple
33. Finding what you didn’t know you were looking for… | Crap I Blog About
34. WWC: The Sound of Silence | Learning the Anishinaabe Way
35. Who Said So? | Buzzy Beez
36. Silence challenge | knovak616
37. The Silence Welcomes Me | StormieSteele
38. Weekly Writing Challenge: Have you seen me? | Life of A Fallen Angel
39. Silence | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
40. The Things We Don’t Say | A Sign Of Life
41. Breaking The Sound Of Silence | At least we made it this far…
42. In the silence of a word | MC’s Whispers
43. From Silence Came Wisdom | Lifeinpawprints’s Weblog
44. Blog challenge – The sound of silence « Defy The Narrative
45. Could the end of ‘that time of the month’ be related to that time of the year? | Minnesota Transplant
46. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | Echoes of My Past
47. Good Grief | Wittyburg.com
48. silence and snow | from dreams to plans
49. Weekly Writing Challenge: Sounds of Silence | Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist)
50. Jumpers for goalposts… | Dreaminspice
51. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | Pop-Culture-Referenced
52. The Silent Sisters | 22 going on 33
53. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | Bringing Out the God-Colors in the World
54. Suicide no. 27: Vow of Silence | derekalanwilkinson
55. Silent White | Mary J Melange
56. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | Your Original LUPUSDIVA….
57. Weekly Writing Challenge: The Sound of Silence | No Apologies
58. Cable Cut-off | The Zombies Ate My Brains
59. Silence so Loud | My Weigh To Lose
60. Silencing the Critics’ Chorus | V Learns Something New
61. Silence of the Blog « ph.d. in creative writing
62. Life: The Search For Someone Who Understands You | Paint Before Death
63. Silence | Dandilyonz-4-U
64. Remaining Silent | Bits of Life