Rhymes To a skeptic, there’s a perpetual worry that little things that have been taken for

Rhymes

To a skeptic, there’s a perpetual worry that little things that have been taken for granted are based more in superstition and folklore than anything as concrete as sound scientific theory. He’d spent no small part of his life reinforcing his beliefs, examining the structures upon which they stood, and making sure he was very much the solid ground type, rather than those who favoured the beachfront.

The light bled across the floor before swirling up to fill the room with a lurid red haze. Morning had arrived before he had, and by the time his eyes creaked open the room was lost to the light. The night had been hectic and event filled to sufficiently narrow his focus so that he had seen only bed. No teeth cleaning, barely time to shed his clothes before hitting the duvet, and certainly no opportunity to close the curtains. 

She was still asleep beside him, the steady rate of her breathing marking her as a lost cause, mired in sleep for a good while yet. He didn’t have the heart to wake her. He barely had the heart to continue trudging his way towards consciousness, out of the warmth and into the day. The duvet slid off his body with all the reluctance he felt, and he stood. 

The cold was always first felt against his softness, that one vulnerable member shivering at the feel of it, a loud complaint he chose to ignore. The light had intrigued him, and his curiosity had always run ahead of his own personal comfort. It was why he was here, rather than anywhere else. Why she was in his bed, instead of someone who was more interested in babies than orgasms. 

He stood at the window, and despite the ochre of the dawn he was somehow desaturated, a pale figure against a wash of scarlet. It was as if he was catching up to the morning, still slipping from the treacled embrace of the night. 

Outside that room, London was a bloodbath. Terraced houses painted sanguine, parks the muddy brown of a healing cut as the greens dirtied the red, fought against it. The sky was devastating. 

The rhyme bobbed to the surface of his consciousness, what little of it had woken up. It was his mother’s voice, but there was no rhythm to it, little melody. It was spoken like a warning.

Red sky at night, Shepard's delight. Red sky in the morning, Shepard's warning.

It was a vestige of superstition, and he doubted even his mother had believed it. But it had sounded about right, and despite himself he could feel an ominous dread skitter at the back of his awareness. 

He glanced over his shoulder, looked at the way the light merged with the gold in her hair, burnished it, made it warmer. It felt unnatural, made her look like someone else. 

He stood there, outlined against the blood sky, until the sun shrugged off the drama and the colour palette returned to normal, all the red drained from the sky. He waited until she returned to normal, and the world with her.