Fusion

Fusion

by Maria Savva

Copyright © Maria Savva 2011

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved: No part of this ebook may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

The moral rights of Maria Savva as author have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Front cover from an original photo by JimMunnelly @ morguefile.com

Back cover photo by J.Gracey Stinson @ Photography of Grace.com

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to the following people for their help with this collection:

Jerry Travis, my good friend from across the pond, for your editing tips, and your enthusiasm in reading my work and for all the encouragement you have given me.

Julie Elizabeth Powell, Stuart Ross McCallum, Wendy Laharnar, Kim Walker for reading a few stories and the editing tips/feedback

Andrea, for proofreading

J.Gracey Stinson @ Photography of Grace.com for allowing me to use your lovely free morguefile photo for the back cover of the book.

James Munnelly of Munnellydesign.com for allowing me to use your wonderful free morguefile pic for the front cover of the book.

Other Books by Maria Savva:

Coincidences

A Time to Tell

Pieces of a Rainbow

Love and Loyalty (and other tales)

Second Chances

Cutting The Fat (written with Jason McIntyre)

Official website: www.mariasavva.com

This ebook contains bonus material! At the end, you will find the following short stories & samples:

Soft Like Snow by Jen Knox

Inside Out by Neil Schiller

Wilted Brown Eyes by Darcia Helle

Smoke Break by Susan Helene Gottfried

East Meets West by Jason McIntyre

Fusion Contents:

1. Only time can divide us

2. Untold Crimes

3. There but for the grace of God

4. The last time he saw her

5. A vicious circle

6. Me and my dictionary

7. Waiting on a Train

8. Justice for Ernie

9. Cold calling

10. Make hay while the sun shines

11. The legacy

12. Hope springs eternal

13. The reunion

14. Something new

15. Obsession

16. Visions

17. A Virtual Affair

18. Till death do us part

19. Seize the Day

20. One woman’s stand

21. The Time Machine

22. The Valentine’s card

Only time can divide us

There was a history in her face. James could not recall ever feeling that way about someone he had only just met.

He hardly ever noticed faces, being a bit of a dreamer. Usually, when he was about his daily routine, his mind was elsewhere. When he saw people, he did not really notice their features. One face was much the same as another, in his mind, even where a person had a distinguishing feature, such as a large mole or a crooked nose. He had often been embarrassed when a person he'd met before greeted him in the street and he was unable to recall their name.

Elsa was different: her face had stayed in his mind from the very first time he saw her. Indelible.

James had an eye for beauty in all its forms. He had a collection of ornaments, paintings, and antiques. It seemed to him that Elsa’s face told a story, in the same way as the exquisite items he would collect. As soon as he saw her, he wanted to be able to look at her every day; to bask in her flawless majesty.

Whenever beautiful faces had caught his eye before, he would maybe wonder to himself whether he would see that person again. Sometimes, he had even hoped he would. But he had never before been left with the feeling that he had to find out more. It had never affected him to such an extent that he could no longer live his life without thinking about that person. There was no escaping the love he felt for Elsa. It seemed to him that hers was a face he could never forget, no matter how hard he tried.

From that very first day, he had tried to think of other things, but when he closed his eyes he could see her eyes staring back at him, and he found himself wishing he was with her. She had such deep, dark brown eyes—so dark they were almost black. Looking into them, he felt almost as though he was falling into a deep hole; a well that would lead him to her soul. He wanted to stare into her eyes for eternity. To look away would be to lose a connection.

The first few times he met her, he often found himself staring. Elsa would look at him as if he were strange. It had not been the same for her; it had not been love at first sight.

He had suffered endless days and nights of questioning himself and worrying that she would not be interested in him. After all, he reasoned, why would someone so bewitching and so charismatic, want to get involved with someone like me?

He did not think he was ugly, in fact he knew he was attractive to the opposite sex; he had heard it said in the past. There was not much corroborative evidence of this, however. He had only had two relationships, and they had both lasted just three or four months. Throughout his life, to the day he had first seen Elsa, it had always felt as if he were searching for someone different; someone special who would stand out from the crowd, who would make him feel the way he thought love should feel. On seeing Elsa, everything had fallen into place, solving the conundrum, explaining the past and the future in one fell swoop. It was her: she was the one he had dreamt about for years. But the puzzle to him was why she did not feel the same way, and fall into his arms so he could carry her away; so they could race off into the sunset and fulfil their destiny.

She haunted his dreams, day and night. In those first weeks, he often found himself looking into mirrors, trying to convince himself that he was worthy of her, but he could not deny the truth: he did not have a face like Elsa’s—one that spoke to you and would not go away. He would often cry when he thought of losing her.

As weeks turned to months, he found himself staring out of windows a lot, usually at night. He often questioned why he did this. Was he hoping for a sign? Maybe he was looking for her.

He had heard about this ‘unrequited love’, but he had never known it would happen to him. The pain he felt was unbearable, and he sometimes thought he was going mad and wished he could focus his mind on something else. But there was nothing else: there was life, there was death, and there was Elsa.

When she finally revealed that she liked him too, he felt amazed. His dream had become a reality. He walked around in a daze for a few days, not really sure if he was dreaming or awake. In those first weeks, they often held each other tightly as if they were both afraid the other one would disappear if they let go. When they kissed for the first time, James knew he had been right to be in love with her; it was the only thing he could have done—it was fated.

When they got close enough to tell each other the truth, Elsa confessed that she had thought him a bit dim when they first met because he used to do a lot of staring and hardly any talking. She had felt sorry for him, and ‘took him under her wing’, as she put it. That had worked out perfectly for him, though, because gradually he had been able to reveal his true feelings, and he found out that although Elsa had been apprehensive at first, she had slowly come around to the idea, and fell in love with him too.

She never told him that she loved him, but he understood. He knew she was not one to open up to anyone. What she felt inside, was a private thing; like a locked box of secrets. Being open about your emotions was not the ‘done thing’ when she was growing up. There was some repression there, but he found that even more attractive because he wasn’t very experienced as a lover, and had not wanted to let her down.

Even after they had been together for years, her face still mesmerised him. It held an invisible allure that drew him to her. As they got to know each other more, it felt almost as if he could see how everything she had lived through had left its own small mark on her face, and was there staring out at him. In a crazy way, he felt that just by looking at her he was reliving her life with her, going through it all with her. He sometimes felt an overwhelming sense of regret that he had not lived with her through all her experiences.

James felt sad that he had met Elsa when most of her life had already been lived. That part was unfair. He felt like the luckiest man in the world to be with her, but also the unluckiest, because they had not met earlier.

They often sat together and talked about their pasts, as if they were discussing far off places they could never visit, but which enthralled them with their wondrous adventures. Elsa’s life was much more interesting than James’s, with stories of how she had raised three children on her own after her first husband had died, and how she had lived in India for a while when her second husband was called out there for work. She’d worked as a nurse during the war and travelled to exotic destinations, witnessing tragic events unfold. Later in life, she had gone to university. James had worked in the same job since leaving school, and had never travelled abroad. He often tried to make things up to give himself a more exciting background, but he knew that Elsa could always tell when he was not telling the truth; it was the way her eyes seemed to be laughing even though her face was fixed in a straight gaze. She would say things like, ‘You know that you don’t have to try to impress me; I like you just the way you are.’

Sometimes it was hard for him to believe that she could really be taken by him, in the same way as he was so taken by her. Nonetheless, she had a way of making him feel sure of it whenever the doubts crept in, and then he would feel ten foot tall.

Elsa had once dated a photographer and he had taken some stunning pictures of her, in black and white, with artistic backgrounds. She had them framed and placed along the hallway in her house. It felt to James that she was now almost watching him, through those pictures, as he headed towards the front door.

He stopped and reached up towards the picture nearest the door. In the photograph, a young Elsa was laying on a chaise longue, wearing a beautiful silk dress. She looked stunning. Her hair flowed in beautiful ringlets, and she looked happy; smiling with a face free of concern, full of the joy and optimism of youth. As a tear fell