When the sun died, as the light faded into the abyssal sky, I realized he was gone. Night crept over me like a cloud, black as my sorrows. A quiet rain began, rolling down my face like tears. There was no wind. The trees, having shed their fall leaves, were bare against the chill night air, but quake they did not, resigned to their fate as I would someday be. The muddied, leaf caked ground of the cemetary was like a comfortable bed to rest my head upon, the rain still flowing gently from it and onto my fingers as they lay under my cheek. Perhaps now it was mixed with my silent tears. There were no words to speak, no feelings to express. Forever here with my love I would lay. I had no desire to leave. My heart heavily weighing me down, I crawled forward, my hands brushing the stone marking his grave. My fingertips ran over and over his name. Nevermore would I see him, the one who means so much to me. The darkness had pulled him away and surrendered him to death's embrace. Oh, the betraying darkness. For years I had found solace in it, the peaceful night. There was nothing to fear from the blind, lightless hours of night, which I spent in my lover's arms. Jealously all that time it had lurked like an old crone, seeking a weakness, a way to take hold of my happiness. Clever darkness, it had driven the knife of revenge deep. I had never meant to choose another over it, surely it had to understand. But now the lovely darkness had taken my darling away. This I could not fathom, living like the dead as I went about my life all alone, abandoned by all, solitude my only companion. Now as I stared at the epitaph that served as a remembrance of my love's life, I understood that he was gone forever. Somehow I felt nothing at all, my feelings had been buried with my heart, with him. Yet I knew it was approaching, the ultimate agony. It laid beside me, waiting for a chance to seize my mind and tangle its thorned tendrils around me. If this twisted web caught me, I knew I would never escape. I lept to my feet, the rotting leaves clinging to my rainsoaked garments, and ran, the wind whipping past me, tree branches scratching my flying limbs. I found peace in the way the air left my lungs too quickly for them to refill, the way it made me feel so lightheaded that I was flying, sailing across the ground. I had to escape from my misery, and it was gaining on me. Further into the woods I ran, no regard for my path. If I became lost, so be it. If I tripped and broke my neck, so be it. As long as sorrow didn't catch up to me. But perhaps it was not sorrow persuing me, but Death. I felt the cold, bony fingers of his hands reaching for me even as I ran as fast as I could. Let him catch me then. I stopped so abrubtly that I lost my footing and fell onto the rock littered ground before the creek I had unknowingly come so close to. My head slammed against one of the rocks, and as I dizzily turned onto my back, the world spinning in a jovial sort of dance, I hoped when I faded into unconciousness I would never wake again.




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