The sound of the wind faded.  She said to her husband, “You use up people.”

He wondered could he tell her of the perfection he’d seen.  Walking on the river.  His boot prints left in the crusty snow a top the ice, the only mark to be seen.  The leafless black oak and sycamore pickets fencing this path through this cold eternity.  Still the creek flowed black rippling, a glistening, a thread, of direction.  Sometimes not seen under snow. Sometimes obscured by ice. Sometimes glorious green-black and bubbling.  Perfection, no trace would remain of his passing, but the memory was forever.

No he didn’t use up people.  They took his heart.  He gave it freely. If he’d a soul it be given too.  But they were never sated. When they had taken all he had they intimated he had denied them.  She knew this.  It didn’t take a spring… just a mid-winter thaw.