On the veranda.

She returned from dinner a tad bit more inebriated than usual and threw her keys carelessly into the couch where they rebounded defiantly onto the floor. The lights had been left on and the refrigerator was out of wine and all other things important. They had passed her on the promotion and her immediate manager had called to inform her of so, out of some inkling of professional courtesy; but he could be heard in the middle of anything but an appropriate setting as women yelled in the background and something made of glass audibly met its demise mid-call. She walked out on the veranda and fastened her arms to the bulbous, vase-inspired columns giving shape to the balcony, locking all the joints and muscles in her body, statuesque in a way way that time could not rob her of. She gazed off into the night.

And when the low clouds came in like moisture percolating on a mirror to erase everything beyond a few feet, the silence only grew in its deprivation. All that remained was the solemn calls of dogs off in the distance relegated to the outdoors, barking their unheeded woes at the dismissive darkness. And then, after its occasional and unannounced intrusion, the thick covering would disperse and life was revived in every direction across the vast distance laid out for her like an admission into beauty itself, intricate and bountiful with streets and twinkling city lights and the integral perception of distance.

And she couldn’t help but think of the phrase “a passing phase” as it applies to any and all things.

And Mars was never brighter in the cold, lonely sky.