I
pray you, in your letters,
When you these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in
malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too
well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd
in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a
pearl away
Othello,
Act V, Lines 389-396
William Shakespeare
Prologue
I stood in the shadows, waiting calmly. Five more minutes. Five more minutes of this unendurable agony.
Part of me wished Rosalie hadn't made the phone call. Part of me wished I didn't know. And yet, I would have found out eventually, and I would have reacted exactly the same. The alternative to nonexistence was too painful now. There was only pain in my future. Unending pain. Agony. I couldn't live with it, no matter how much Alice would try to help me.
I looked around at the cloaked figures, hiding their identities in a shroud of black. They were waiting for me to do what they knew I would. What I had told them I would do.
To be able to live through these last unendurable minutes, I once more pulled the memory of the meadow to the forefront of my mind, lingering on the details of it. How I wanted life to be so uncomplicated again, so pain-free. That day had been the best day of my entire existence.
And this was the worst. The clock chimed, signifying midday, as I moved toward the sunlight.