CDPunt(igam) Writes

The inky darkness spilled over her. Hope ticking away with each stilted beat of her heart. Despair had settled in with the early hours of the day. No one should be here in this place, breathing in the night air, filling their lungs with the cold desperation that comes alive in the dark. Alone, she was utterly alone and it would always be this way. He was gone.

She felt like she was the one alone in the casket in this thick midnight hour. Maybe she should have stayed home and not wandered this lonely trail. The one they’d walked so often to greet the sun that she knew each crest and fall by heart. Instead, she crawled along in the hopeless murky air desperate for a moment of relief.

Once she made it to the bench, their bench, she collapsed onto its hard unforgiving planks. Unforgiving, she’d never forgive him for getting sick and leaving her in the dark like this. She closed her eyes and strained her ears seeking at least an echo of his laughter. Not even the birds stirred in this world of decay. An eternity she sat there in the cold.

When the first bird chirped, she pushed aside the sound refusing to leave her tomb. Then she felt the familiar change of the wind welcoming the sun that still could not be seen. It rushed past her intimate and a stranger at the same time. Heralding a day she could not yet imagine. Off in the distance, the purple black sky began to falter. Not able to withstand the power of the dawn, it began to shift and lighten. The birds reaching a crescendo as the first rays peeked through her tightly drawn cover of darkness. Hope found its way through.