Untitled
Everything was gray.
Not in the literal sense, of course, but close enough that it made no difference.
The air around her felt fuzzy and damp, as the rain burst forth from the clouds and landed in great drops upon her shivering form. Their touch was cool and comforting, as though they were trying to wash away her troubles, her pain.
To no avail.
Tears traveled down the plains of her face, seeming somehow desperate to keep pace with the raindrops.
She reclined in the embrace of an old willow tree, and allowed her eyes to traverse the area around her. A stream tumbled fervently below, and she traced it with her eyes, stopping as she saw an old, unsteady bridge just a short way down. It was all she noticed besides the green grass that sat beneath her and rolled on as far as the eye could see.
All was alive around her, but the only true company she had amidst the silence and the rain was a small squirrel. Both sought shelter from storms, the only difference being that the little creature's storm was physical.
Hers was a tempest of the mind: a flurry of thoughts, the thunderous finality of things she could not control, lightning flashes of the past.
She had begun to doubt herself, to doubt the decisions she made in her life – past, present, and even those she had been considering for the future.
He knew.
He saw it written all over her face, even from across the water.
Read her like a book,
he could.
Never cease to irk her, it would.
That she could hide nothing from him.
That he understood her even when she did not understand herself.
A chill crept down his spine, and he knew.
Rising from her place of rest, she wrapped her arms around herself.
She had begun to desire answers to every question, from the simplest, most insignificant inquiry, to things only dead men could tell.
And they could not speak.
Or perhaps they simply did not want to speak to her.
She pondered how to begin a conversation with those who had passed on. She paused only a second to recognize the irrationality of such thoughts as she ventured around her tree to look over the small, neglected cemetery beyond.
"Why?" She yelled out, to no one in particular, knowing she would receive no reply, but desiring one, nonetheless. "Why?"
The wind gave her the only semblance of an answer she was to be given, as it whipped the free falling water upon her face.
She sobbed now, her legs giving out below her and she toppled to the ground. The air swirled around her, moving faster and faster; she felt as though that same wind was pushing something closer and closer. What, she did not know.
Lightning crackled above her, striking her tree.
The orange and red tongues stood out fiercely against the green and gray around her.
He watched her quaking form as she fell beneath the burning bush. Trapped across the water, he could not reach her.
Could not comfort.
Could not harm.
Could do nothing.
Helplessness.
Finality.
One world becomes two.
He falls to his knees.
Their stars are no longer the same.
The little rickety bridge is blown to splinters in the wind.
