She hadn't moved for ages. Her husband was chatting to two of his groupies; he played the organ at church. He had been doing so for over fifty years. She had been married to him for over fifty years too. They had been together for so long now that neither of them noticed the other. The habit of hearing the same thing, seeing the same thing, feeling the same thing, thinking the same thing had wrapped them both up into a cosy cocoon of boredom neither of them had questioned. He still had a little life left in him and spread it over the two ladies keeping him company. No life was left in her. She had given up looking for hidden sparks years ago.
She sat at the end of the table motionless, still wearing her coat, gazing straight ahead, oblivious to movement around her and the woman sitting opposite. There was no colour left in her face. She had taken colour away from her clothes years ago. The only sign that life had not given up on her yet was when she lifted her left arm to sip the tiniest of drops of Guinness from a glass. It still looked full when the two ladies sitting at the table rose to leave. Her husband said goodbye to them warmly and then turned to mutter something to his wife. She acknowledged by moving her right forefinger which was dangling limp on her side - and had been for the length of dinner. Obediently, her husband laid the plastic bag on the floor, where her forefinger had pointed and then sat at the table behind theirs to exchange a few words with those seated there. His back to his wife's.
She still hadn't moved. It was difficult to say whether she had noticed that there was no one sitting at the table anymore. Her eyes were still very set somewhere on the far side of the dining hall. Perhaps she was looking for what she had lost.
