I

He wanted attention, her attention. She didn't realize it though. He had given her the license to pay him attention, it was mutually agreed upon.

They had set the stage now and the lights were on them; but she stood there frozen, not playing her part. He kept trying to activate the stage. Trying to hold the audiences interest, trying even harder to keep his own. He gave her all the hints he could think of; even said some of her lines, yet she seemed unaffected.

The dialogue that the audience expected wasn't happening. some got impatient. He wondered why she wouldn't budge. They had rehearsed these scenes endlessly and now, when they were to breathe life into them, her silence was causing this suffocating abortion.

He could hold the stage no longer. It was just unbearable. His part had been played, more than played. He left her, unwilling and in disbelief, to the questioning waiting of the audience.....

He was all alone, though surrounded by the audience. All those people, yet more to feel for him and she stood there frozen. Emotionally frozen. Obviously not feeling his loneliness. He called out to her from the audience - to disguise this void as part of the play - he called to come to him. He pleaded he couldn't punish himself any longer. She didn't seem to care. He cried he needed her. In response, she asked him to come himself. To the shock of the audience, she repeated it. Repeated with open abandon. There, abandoned he felt; and abandoned he was.