Prophet Song

He turns then and studies his wife as she feeds the child on her breast and the sight of this comforts him, a sense of life contracted to an image so at odds with malice his mind begins to cool. She gives him her finger and he grips it with such tiny might she knows his innate terror, the child clinging as though for dear life, as though there is nothing else to bind him to life but his mother. She turns to face the street, watching the world pass by in strange pretence, the pale and stolid faces hurrying back to work, they are mostly civil servants, every day another international firm closes its doors and makes its excuses, soon the city will be emptied out. She switches off the radio but cannot sleep, lies turning circles in her mind, is woken by Ben who finally closes his eyes holding her face in his hands.