Their lips pressed tight and she’s all contrite with her adoring and him ignoring. Insignificant child swirling somersaults inside the wedding dress barely knowing a thing and now he’s all at sea. ‘You’ve had your chips,’ her father quips. Red faced but not disgraced. But he got the girl married off alright , that could have been tight, he thinks, as he sups at his warming Champagne.

Then all those years passing; him dying, her crying, crowd sighing. Life over and complete all tidy and done, no loose ends left and no more harm done  before the cycle starts again.