"What've you got there?" The towering man with the soot-dark hair stepped slowly and cautiously, drawing ever nearer to the woman standing near the bare hazel thicket. A bitterly cold wind gusted down from the north, fluttering the brown, dried grass beneath their feet and rattling the naked branches overhead.
The woman did not turn towards his voice, and gave no sign that she knew he was there. Her hands appeared to be cupped together, and her head bent down towards them. Even in the weak, grey light of the winter's afternoon, her tresses were bright like burnished copper amid the otherwise colorless scene. An oversized coat was draped around her shoulders, its hem dragging along the earth.
"Hey," he murmured again in a deep, soft tone, hoping not to startle her. "What have you got?" By now, he was close enough to see over her shoulder for himself. Cradled in her palms was a dead robin, its legs awkwardly bent and stiff. Something clenched within his chest at the sight of it. He lifted a hand a few inches, but froze there, unsure of how to proceed.
Suddenly, the woman lifted her head and tipped her face back so that her turquoise eyes were aimed at him.
The man sucked in a breath and held it. His own muddy eyes blinked repeatedly with surprise, as she had never before looked at him. Through him, past him, yes. But never at him. His rough, brutish features softened, his hand lingered in the air, not knowing where to go, whether to touch her shoulder, to reach for the dead animal, or to retreat. "There now," he murmured, feeling his own uselessness. "It is all right."
The copper-headed figure lowered her gaze back to the wretched creature in her hands. She turned, inch by inch, until she was facing the man. And then she lifted her arms just as slowly, to offer him the bird. At the same time, her eyes returned to his face, imploring.
The man looked from bird to woman and back again in rapid succession. "I can't - " he stammered. "I can't fix it." Still, he moved his large, bear-like hands beneath hers. He felt the fragile smallness of her fingers as she tenderly tipped the robin into his palm. "I can't - " He could only repeat himself like a fool and shake his head.
She kept her eyes pinned to his face all the while, and once the bird was within his grasp, her expression seeped from pleading to an empty sort of relief. The warmth of what seemed a genuine communion melted away, and a blank coolness took its place. Her pupils drifted slightly to the side, just enough so that he felt her departing from him. Her feet rotated, a little at a time, until she faced away.
A long and weary sigh found its way out through the man's lips. He stood behind her for a time, silent and pensive, before moving away to find a place to dispose of the bird, where she would not find it again.
