He reaches toward me, his fingers hitting the silver band on my finger which clicks  against his wedding band. His touch warms my clasped hands. My hands are cold. He flinches  back, jerking away from my clammy flesh. Why isn’t he holding my hand? Is the cold too much?  Am I too much? I don’t move; waiting, waiting, waiting. He stays standing. Five inches away. If  I reached out, I could clasp his hand, my cold colliding with his warmth, sending chills up his  arm. He’d laugh, like he used to, and glare at me for startling him. But, he’d hold my hand  tighter. Why isn’t he holding me tighter? My hands remain locked together, eyes closed, waiting.  If he reached out, gripping my hands in his, his warmth would seep into me. And I’d…he stays  standing. My hands are cold.  

You reach toward her, the wedding band on your finger clacks against hers, reverberating  like a gunshot in the silent room. Her eyes are closed; jaw and hands clenched, like she’s  bracing. You want to comfort her; to take away some of whatever she’s bracing for. You curl  your fingers more firmly around her hand. The stillness hits you; a thousand frigid needles  stabbing at your skin. You jerk away. This is wrong. So wrong. You should be holding her,  tracing circles on her hand, joking about her being the queen of cold, shaking her awake from her  nightmare, pulling her towards the bright sunshine of life. But she’s still. You touched her, and  she just stayed there, a rusted tin man in your grip. No gentle squeeze in return, tugging you  closer. Her eyes should be cracking open, lips tilting upward, not frozen in place. Her hands are  cold.  

A man, hunched over, with salt and pepper hair, reaches towards her. Their matching  wedding bands click together, echoing across the long empty church, bouncing off each pew.  The noise doesn’t wake her; her hands remain locked together, jaw tucked down, snow white hair cascading over her shoulders. She does not move. The man’s eyes glisten, and his hand  shakes, as he reaches forward again, curling it around her bony knuckles. His eyes widen, he  leaps back, knocking over the flowers next to him. His hands continue to shake, breath coming in  gasps as he stares, thousands of memories hitting him: her running up behind him, her cold hands  blocking his vision as she giggles; cold hands slipping under his shirt to tickle him, shrieking at  her antics; cold hands sliding the ring onto his finger, eyes warm, in that very same church. The  man stands there. The woman rests in her coffin. Whatever life was once in her has gone, no  more desire, no more reaching toward him. But her hands are still cold.