Disclaimer: I don't own Moulin Rouge or the characters related to it. They belong to other people. No copyright infringement is intended.
Dedication: For Brad, my penniless writer, and the profoundness of letting go.
Images affixed themselves in a state of juxtaposition as he ducked under the sweeping limbs of the weeping willow tree, the rays of light filtering through the leaves casting an intricate pattern of sun and shadow about him. Against this picture of brilliant spring he could remember the snow and cold, frozen earth; a coffin with a spray of red roses and baby's breath; the bleak faces of mourners clad in black.
Birds chirped in the trees around him, but he could hear only the sounds of his own sobs as he'd fallen at the base of the casket and begged her not to leave him. The scent of blossoming flowers, reminding him of nothing more than her perfume, the heady scent of jasmine, though naught as intoxicating as her mere presence, so close . . .
The scent of rose petals as they cascaded around them, raining upon a world that was suddenly brighter with the prospect of renewed love. Then her body lay limp in his arms, a hollow form from which the spirit had fled like a sparrow, still beautiful to look upon but without the animation of life that had made her more than simply a lovely shell.
He knelt there upon the grass, inhaling the smell of clover and disturbing a bumblebee where it sat at work in a buttercup, though its indignant buzzing was lost to him, his ears filled with the pounding of his own pulse and race of his own heartbeat, mind flooded with images that returned, bringing with them at once joy and sorrow. But they were not unbidden now, no; he welcomed them, and the tears of both happiness and pain.
His vision, a storm-clouded gaze of blue-grey, filled with the blur of those tears, and he blinked once, allowing them to roll down his face, a wan smile curving at his lips where the taste of warm saline fell upon them. His fingers, their tips stained a faded black from ink, reached out to the granite headstone he had come to settle himself before, tracing the name engraved upon its face with loving care. Though for a moment he felt a frozenness in the stone, the warmth the sun had cast upon it soon sank through, and his smile became a bit broader, the dampness in his knees now not from bitter snow, but dew lingering upon the vibrant blades of grass.
He drew in another breath of the fresh spring air, then settled back and simply gazed at the headstone as if seeing the person whose life it memorialized, then quietly he began to speak, slowly at first, but with the words pouring out at a gradually increasing pace that suggested it was something he had needed to say for a long while.
"I don't reserve only one day every year to come here. After you were buried, I sat here for a solid day, until I finally had to be taken away, shivering and nearly having caught my own death from the cold—though that was my wish, only at the time I was not lucky enough to have been granted it.
"After that, I refused to come. The pain was too great, and I could not bring myself to it. It took months before I would finally come back, but after that I have never missed this day, your birthday. The day of your death, I do not come, for I would rather celebrate your life, than its ending.
"And even after I brought myself to return, it took a great deal of coaxing on the part of Toulouse. I owe a lot to him, you know—if it wasn't for him and the others keeping frequent check on me, I no doubt would have succumbed to my addictions, giving in to the alcohol abuse and self-starvation I had taken upon myself.
"It wasn't easy on them, either. I wanted to hate you for leaving me, but that only made things worse. I didn't want any company, save a full bottle of Absinthe and the numbness it would bring me, even if it was only a temporary escape. The Green Fairy became my muse and best friend, whispering meaningless words of comfort and weaving a spell of oblivion that I accepted gratefully.
"But those were not my deadliest foes. Not the Absinthe, nor the opium, nor anything else I attempted with the silent wish of finally ending my miserable existence.
"The worst dependency I suffered was upon my own grief. I fed off it, clung to it, and worst of all, I fueled it onward. It was the only feeling I could accept through the numbness, and I didn't realize that it wasn't what you would have wanted for me. I didn't realize that such would only bring you guilt, but now I know the truth.
"They say that no matter what happens, there comes a time at which you must let go. I had thought never to do such a thing—I had thought to immortalize our love by mourning you forever, by never going on with my life. And for a while, I did just that. But since then, I've become wiser.
"The world does not end with one broken heart, even as I thought it should, and though I simply stopped, the world kept on moving around me, at its constant, ever-changing pace.
"You know, you once told me yourself that the first lesson you learned in life was that you had to accept things as they were, and try to move on as best you could. I now understand what you meant when you told me that's what makes us who we are.
"I won't deny, when you died, a part of me died with you. I wanted for the longest time nothing more than to join you. But I learned that after a while, the pain does subside, even if only into a dull ache.
"You probably know it by now, but I've fulfilled my promise to you, just as I said I would. Your dying wish. I have written our story, recorded the words into more than three hundred pages. Those three hundred pages were like three hundred knives stabbing into my heart, unearthing all that I had tried to keep buried . . . and three hundred healing hands at the same time, treating the wounds that had been reopened—or, perhaps, never truly closed.
"And I understand now that you did not ask me to tell our story so that you would be here with me, because you've never left, but for my own closure, as a process of mourning and healing and, inevitably, moving on . . .
"And I know now that moving on doesn't mean forgetting you. It is not a sin after all to go on with life, despite the guilt I might feel that you are not here with me.
"I will always remember you, and I will always love you . . . and yet I have to lay down these burdens and learn to live again, because I made you that promise."
Then he picked up a dozen roses and set them against the granite headstone, taking care to arrange the flowers just correctly, and they bore not the blood-like vermilion petals of previous days, but snow white blossoms instead.
"But I'll always bring you roses . . ."
He lingered there for a few moments longer, then slowly rose and turned to walk away.
For the next forty years, on the anniversary of that day, there never failed to be flowers placed upon her grave, always roses of the purest white. And, it was said, upon the first year that fell in which the bouquet was absent, a small white bud struggled its way out of the ground, opened its petals to the sky, and had flourished there ever since.