It was a cloudless day- something not so uncommon, just like the chirps of crickets and birds hoping for Spring to dawn soon.
A normal day, like any other, the sun bearing down upon all those exposed below on our little green and blue planet.
And in the midst of it all stood a single man, at a single grave, clad in a black suit and tie, regardless of the 50°C heat. His hands, at his sides neatly. A pair of black Ray Bans, shading his eyes comfortably. Hair, straight and black as pitch, neatly brushed. Dry, lifeless and sepia-toned leaves peppered the grass around him, joining him with their own wordless sorrows. To anyone, he'd look like a Man in Black. But to the grave he stood before, he looked like a man in grief.
His face a faintly drawn picture of melancholy, he stared at the engraving upon the grey stone as though the very thought of looking away would kill him instantly.
There was no solace in his darkened eyes; no sympathy would mend his broken soul.
With a heave of emotional strength, he managed to bring his expression to a stand-still; now flat and almost blank.
Not even he could notice the single pearly tear now rushing down his left cheek; his eyes, gleaming with tears, the only sign of any humanity he had spared for himself.
For her.
It pained him subconsciously to know that they were hidden by tinted plastic.
No words left his mouth, no gesture made itself apparent, the man simply turned and began to walk away from the lonely grave, slowly.
With weary eyes, he kept his gaze fixated upon the path ahead, without a look back. There was nothing left for him now.
It was then the man left that form behind; his height fluctuating, his facial features lost- his face now a picture of nothing. Like an erased, pale portrait.
And so he locked it all away, behind him, with the grave of a now wilted flower.
He could cry, isolate himself; be empty.
He could do what she would have wanted- smile, keep loving, move on.
But his answer was clear:
Neither was also an option.
Then those dry and dead leaves littering the grass began to dance in the breeze, making their own little tornadoes around the grave like an Autumn morning. Silently weeping their own ends.
"Little solace comes
to those who grieve
as thoughts keep drifting
as walls keep shifting
and this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves
Moments before the wind."
- House of Leaves, 563