Herbst Still

He is 54. She is 48. Both are married, both know their limits, until they meet on a business trip in the Italian Alps.

What grows between them is not love. It is too immediate, too physical and too dangerous for that. They do not say what they want. They do not have to.

Just before their desire becomes something irreversible, they stop. Not because they do not want each other, but because an older voice is louder than their longing.

They part and still take something of each other with them. A look. A touch that never happened. And the certainty that some moments wait for us only once.

They return to their familiar lives. But silence does not end what began between them.

How long can you stay true to a rule without becoming untrue to yourself?

When they finally decide to stop obeying the old rule, neither of them senses how little time they still have.