The evening was tinged with sadness. A melancholy that blanketed everything.

Their smiles didn't reach their eyes. The cold was in their bones but they didn't seek warmth in each other. They had none to offer.

They watched the flame of the candle slowly burn down. The light dancing in their eyes, hypnotic, helping them ignore the tension.

They knew the end was near. That it was time to say goodbye.

They didn't have any words left. Nothing to say.

And as they ate in silence, the taste of the food wasted on them, the candle continued to burn.

And then they left.

Together, but far apart. Two souls wrapped in misery, too broken to support each other. Two people playing out a silent charade, a pantomime. Two people with nothing to hold on to anymore.

And so they walked. As a pair but with only their thoughts to listen to. In the cold, wrapped up in their jackets. But what could those do for the cold inside their hearts. Longing to hold each other, they walked, knowing that it wasn't to be anymore.

And then it was time for goodbye. With no words left to say and all the strength they had mustered gone, they stood in the light of the single streetlight looking at each other. Struggling to keep the pieces together, trying to speak with no words, they stood there while the world spun madly around them.

And then the spell broke. The dam crumbled. The strength failed completely. And they left. Each to go their separate ways. Tears betraying them, they walked away. Shells of what they'd once been, facades gone.

Thus the curtain fell. On a story often seen, seldom told.