Good night, good night
"Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow." William Shakespeare, 'Romeo and Juliet', Act 2, Scene 2.
He had orange hair once, and quite remarkable it was too - it stuck out like a sore thumb and he used to get teased for it constantly, he'd say to me. But during the time I knew him, his hair was no longer so thick and colourful, but simple white wisps on a balding head, and his tangerine eyebrows grey bushes concealing dark, magnificently wise eyes. He was seventy two, but to me he looked far older.
He lived in a small, grey house that seemed sad compared to the rest of the brightly painted homes in and around the neighbourhood. No, his house was quietly miserable, its colour peeling off the walls and falling onto slightly overgrown grass and wild rose bushes like silent tears rolling down a face. And inside it wasn't much different: the furniture was dated, and when I first walked in I remember thinking of it as a museum to celebrate the bygone sixties, with its dark yellow patterned curtains (all but faded now) and its cheap art deco curios littering the mantelpiece. But there was one artefact - the only piece that wasn't collecting dust - that sat cosily on the window sill.
It was a photo, colours beginning to drain slightly, and living behind a rotten frame. Sunlight had battered the thing, but I had been surprised at the beauty of it. It was him, Mr Kurosaki, as a very young man, with the orange of his hair practically glowing off the paper, his smile so strong and so wide that it could have been there forever. And then there was the girl, under his arm, with her hair blowing around her face and her eyes - her deep blue eyes like the ocean - swirling with happiness, a radiant smile on her face as she looked up at Mr Kurosaki. They were the most beautiful pair of people I had ever seen in my life.
"That's Mrs Kurosaki," he said to me the first time he caught me staring at it, "when we were young."
His eyes, which usually I couldn't see beneath his overgrown straggles of eyebrow hair, were softly shining, enveloped in sadness and happiness and love and loneliness. I was moved when I first saw that look, but it was something I quickly grew used to as I began to visit Mr Kurosaki every Wednesday afternoon for his check-ups.
He was dying, and I was assigned to be his weekly drop-in nurse sent by the local hospital. He was too ill to make the journey by himself - it was when he was given a wheelchair, maybe four months before he died, that I became his regular visitor to care and assess his condition.
The first few visits were as regular as they should ever have been. I was in and out within an hour, notes in hand and prescriptions written. But it was one day, after my fifth visit - two months and three weeks before he passed - that he surprised me:
"You look just like my wife," Mr Kurosaki smiled, and continued. "Yes, the spitting image of my Rukia. I've never seen such a resemblance."
I'd glanced at the photo and, as always, her eyes were still looking at him, but they burned into my mind at that moment, blue waves flooding my thoughts and vision. With surprise I realised that she did, though I thought that perhaps my eyes weren't as striking as hers. Mrs Kurosaki truly shone, and I knew that the photo probably didn't do her many favours compared to the real thing.
"Thank you," I'd said with a smile most genuine, "your wife is truly beautiful, I'm flattered."
He continued to tell me about her: how they met, what she was like, her favourite song, how she had decorated the whole house by herself, how stunning she looked in her wedding dress.
The visits expanded from one hour to two, to three, to four. He repeated himself often, but it didn't bother me; his story was fascinating, even though it wasn't a particularly interesting story at all. But Rukia... Rukia was a mysterious character. I could feel her sometimes; I imagined her vanilla perfume wrapping around me as her sultry blue eyes burnt deep into my soul.
By my last visit I felt like I knew everything about her. However there was still one puzzle piece missing, and it was during my last check-up that I finally asked.
"Mr Kurosaki," I'd said carefully, as he sipped his cup of tea. "If you don't mind my asking, what happened to Rukia?"
He said nothing for a long time, his dark, dark eyes transfixed on their photo. I waited patiently, but after maybe five minutes as I opened my mouth to change the subject, he spoke.
"Car accident," he nodded carefully, not moving his gaze from the picture. "She was walking down the street - this street, towards home - late afternoon. It was winter, and a car lost control on the ice and hit her. They told me that she died instantly."
I found myself devastated when I left Mr Kurosaki's house that day. I'd learnt a whole new story in that visit: how they'd been planning for a baby, how devastated he was (as any husband would be), how lonely his life had been ever since. When I got home I cried for a long time, feeling truly foolish. Rukia Kurosaki had died over fifty years ago, yet I missed her terribly; a great sadness dwelled in my heart for her, and especially for him.
I got a phone call a couple of days later telling me that Mr Kurosaki had died in his sleep.
To my amazement, I wasn't very upset by the news. They were together now, wherever that may be, and it comforted me to know that they weren't alone any more. I attended the funeral - it was in the local church, and a desperately sad amount of people turned up. I stayed for a long time after the ceremony had ended, reading and rereading the words on his gravestone ("Rest in peace, Ichigo Kurosaki"). He was buried next to her, and for that I was glad. I placed a rose - cut from their own garden - on the mound of disturbed earth, and quietly wished them both well.
It didn't take long for the house to be cleared out and sold. Most of the furniture was thrown away, and the stuff that was still usable donated to charity shops. I kept the photo, and placed it on my own window sill. It became a habit to greet them both good morning when I woke up and bid them both good night when I fell asleep, and I didn't particularly mind.
I had to write a short story based off a Shakespeare quote for English at school, and I came up with this. I thought it was quite sad, personally... Please tell me your thoughts in a review!