In the Prime of Life

Copenhagen’s gilded parlors inhale the scent of tuberoses while a draper’s assistant, Ellen, folds muslin like a future she’s not allowed to keep. Edgar, silk-waisted and flush with generational coin, purchases roses the way others acquire racehorses—impulse draped in chivalry. Their courtship is a Sunday carousel of gaslit waltzes and promenades along Langebro, time measured in tram tickets and stolen breaths. Three turns of the moon and the carousel stops: a trembling blue line on a strip of cotton tells Ellen the ride is over. Edgar kneels, swears a kingdom of two, then watches his father’s patriarchal gravity collapse the vows into ledger ink. The unborn becomes an un-person; the florist’s bouquet, now funereal, rots on a writing desk where signatures once promised permanence.