My Beloved and the Moon
He looked up at the bright moon from his long rectangular window in his private study room. The Moons soft beams gently lit the darkened room illuminating the otherwise hidden cobwebs and dust. He longingly looked at the letter sitting upon his coffee table, its contents yet to be discovered. On the front of the envelope were two simple yet meaningful words;
"My Beloved",
written in beautiful curved handwriting with just a smudge of black ink at the top of the "d". His gaze shifted to the full moon which caused a sense of peace and tranquillity to fill his body at the sight. It reminded him of his beloved. It was replaced with a deep yearning within in himself when a single white cloud passed slowly over the Moon. The light was curtained and the world was thrown into the clutches of darkness once more. He sighed as the Moon came into view slowly and sat down and lit the candle within the lamp with a matchstick. Life is like a matchstick, he thought as he picked up the envelope and studied its texture; it starts up with a flare leaving a dark trail as it goes towards the end where it just dies out and the smoke filled memories cast into the air, so short and so fast...just like her life. He remembered asking her when he could open it. She had replied with a laugh, "When the time was right."
She was fun and exciting most of the time but distant and filled with mystery and secrets all the other times. It was as if she didn't belong on this earth. She always reminded him of the Moon. He felt a great nostalgia for the time he spent with her in her happier moments. The rhyme that she always used to sing popped up into his head.
When the Night is dark and the Moon is bright and the Stars are out to play
Listen closely and you shall hear what they have to say
Don't close your ears or your eyes at the sound of voices
Open your mind and your heart for the time is nigh for choices
You are my love and my love you are and that you shall always be
For now you don't understand but soon you will join me.
Silent tears slipped down his cheek as he remembered her, his beloved; sing this rhyme before she left him. She had called it My Beloved and the Moon.
At the edge of the cliff she stood with her back towards him. The Night was dark and the Moon's beams touched her making her a glowing beacon on the top of the cliff. The wind had whipped at her long white nightgown and at her dark raven hair creating a picture of nightmarish beauty.
"The Moon also controls the tides," she said her gaze upon the waves that ripped at the rock below. She had turned and blew him a single kiss, "I will be waiting my darling,"
"Where are you going?" he said frantically, not really wanting to hear the answer.
Her eyes were not hers and her demeanour was scaring him.
"You cannot leave me. N...Now come back into me and we can work through this together. You and I, we can go home and..."
She shook her head sadly and smiled, an inkling of her former self showed through her eyes.
"No. This is not home my sweet and not yours either." She had said and inched back towards the edge of the cliff. He took a step forward.
'This is our home my love. This..." he stopped as she started to sing the rhyme. Tears slid down her cheek as she looked at him. They were not tears of sadness, no, they were tears of joy. She took the last step back off the cliff and was gone. He could still hear her sing that daunting beautiful song as she slipped away from him.
He couldn't have beared to watch his love fall to her death. He remembered falling to his knees and crying and shouting at the sky's, asking them why? The stars silent and lonely radiance continued to shine no matter what curses he threw at them.
The doctor had said that his wife was crazy just a week before she committed her suicide.
'She is mentally unfit to reside in our society. You must keep her inside the house until I deem her fit to enter the community seeing as you won't allow her to go to my hospital. Just ignore the nonsense that she babbles about and I will come and see her in another two weeks," he had said packing up his gear into his suitcase and exiting the house. He had watched him get onto his horse and canter back to the village.
He shook his head coming back to the present. Did he believe that his wife was mentally unstable? No, of course not, he thought laughing softly at the ridiculous idea. What was she then? He got up off the chair and placed the letter inside his jacket pocket. He paced to and fro in front of the window with quick steps. His mind was a big heap of memories and assumptions about his wife. A couple of days before his wife committed suicide she sung the rhyme every night at exactly midnight. Always he would sit with her in their room near her bed until he knew she was asleep. She had had a habit of escaping her room in the middle of the night to the balcony on the highest level of the house. There he would find her singing My Beloved and the Moon softly to herself, her voice carrying the haunting tune across the rose filled courtyard. He always asked her what she was doing there..
"Why do you forsake the truth? Wake up from your deaf slumber my love. Wake and join me."
He now found himself drawn to the same balcony where he had found her so many nights when he accidently fell asleep at her bedside. The courtyard had a beauty all of its own in the night. The cool night air wafted all the sweet smells from the roses, lavender and other exotic flowers to the balcony and inside the room. He found himself humming My Beloved and the Moon.
"There has to me some deeper meaning to this," he mumbled to himself. He felt like a starved caged lion that only needed to speak to the people to get food. His wife always told him to wake up. How? He thought. Like the lion he didn't know how to wake up. He was awake wasn't he? These questions plagued at his mind constantly tormenting him with what he thought were the answers but turned out to be more questions.
"Can't you feel your heart beating faster at that site?" she pointed to the large white and grey orb hanging in the sky, "Don't you get the feeling of being at one with the Moon and the Stars, the Wind and the Clouds? When you feel loneliness within yourself as the land turns dark and the clouds cover the sky then you know you know you cannot continue without them and all the others." She gestured, her arm sweeping in a large arc showing the crowded sky. Everyday people join them in their haven...soon it will be our turn."
"Do you feel lonely? I'm here though. I'll always be here." He replied embracing her and from behind and kissing her neck.
"Yes, I feel lonely. You will too. There is a barrier to this world, the mortal barrier that is restricting us from where we are truly meant to be. Take this and only open it when you understand, when you feel and see," She gave him the letter and walked away from his warm embrace back inside the house.
He mulled over the words of the rhyme taking in all that she had said. The wind suddenly picked up and whipped through the trees making a moaning sound. It was as if the wind carried millions of tiny voices. He rubbed his ear feverishly thinking it to be just a trick of the wind.
Join us. She is waiting, whispered the tiny almost silent voices.
He shook his head unconsciously and headed back inside and sat down in his master chair. Silence engulfed the crowded chamber. The black ashy fireplace had lain dormant for the past week since her suicide. He didn't deserve to feel warmth without her presence with him. His fingers drummed the chair arm impatiently. He took out the letter and stilled his fingers by turning it around and around. The impulse to see the site where she had killed herself was overwhelming. Jogging through his bed chamber, past the master ballroom, through the dining hall and out through the kitchen led him to the stables where his horse stood waiting patiently. He saddled and strapped the old loyal beast, mounted and galloped away down the eastern road towards the ocean.
Standing solemnly and silently he watched the waves rush forward onto the shore and then recede slowly back into the pack leaving the stragglers to sink slowly and silently into a death-like state in the sand. A small chirping sound could be heard on the rocky outcrop. A single fluffy white hatchling sat calling for its parents, waiting for food.
Death awaits us all little hatchling. Your ghost shall join that of my beloved soon. Fear not, he thought. His eyes widened in surprise at the revelation. His fingers fumbled for the letter deep within his pocket. He slowed his pace and opened the envelope but stopped. Fear suddenly dawned upon him. He was afraid of what might be written. He forced himself on and held the folded letter, the end result of the furious struggle to open the envelope. In it the words glowed bright in the moon light. He read it slowly absorbing all that was written on the page.
I distanced myself from you, my love so that you may understand
Though it broke my heart to see your pain it had to be done
But now that you see how the world has become so bland
Join me forever and fall, fall into my waiting embrace.
He sighed. Relief, fear, happiness, understanding and anger were some of the many emotions that flooded through him. Life, death and the world was thrown into a new perspective. He stepped forward and stood at the end of the cliff. Her beautiful smiling face appeared in front of him. He outstretched his arms and let the wind tease his scraggily hair.
"Come...come..."
He took one last step and then let gravity take control.
The wind blew across the dark silent cliff stirring the blades of grass to life and steering a single white gull towards the rocky outcrops.