He says he doesn't know the story about the child. They are both sitting by the fire, the older man is staring into the biting brightness in the middle. The hot crackling making wisps of light smoke drift upwards to dissolve in the quaint light between them. He doesn't say anything for a while, neither does the boy, if you can still call him that. He used to be a boy, before, when he strung pearls upon threads and made charcoal linings across walls only to get scolded by a baritone voice that meant distinguishable sadness and comfort. The older man talks slowly since the words weren't meant for him, has been taken from him and are only now brusquely given back. He doesn't tell the younger man this as he knows that it'll only bring him pain. He talks about trees, and teeth, perfectly aligned, about meeting others that meant a lot to her, and snow. He talks about her rounded belly, but doesn't talk about white linen sheets; not about her flushed skin or her distraught breath. That was meant for them alone, as they wanted it. Eons may pass but that moment will not, it is absolved and burnt into his memory like wasted coins.
The younger man listens, he sits perfectly still upon the stone, he has not breathed for a while but his father does not tell him this, thinks that maybe his son can retain the mirage of life for a bit longer. He dosn't wish for him to confront his mortality and watch it diminish with every nonexistent rise of his chest. Maybe he will notice when he stops talking, and so he speaks. He tells him of doctors, and little hands, too small and too fragile to comprehend, fingers wrapped so strongly around one of his. Skin that was white and hair even more so. The woman had had brown hair, a beckoning shade that made him think of the cherry blossoms where he had sunken down next to her, watched as is eloped over her shoulders and down sultry arms. It saddens him that the younger man has white hair, that he looks nothing like his mother, that he can't recall the woman that his father's speaking of, that he can't conjure up an image of holding a child in his arms. His son died young, he realizes. He died without having woken up in the middle of the night because of lilting cries, and the father does not know if it's a blessing or a curse. He doesn't know if there was someone he loved, that he held in his arms.
What did you leave behind?