Author's Note: Once again, exactly one hundred fifty one words, not counting the quotation (however, this time the original bit didn't quite add up evenly, so I had to add and subtract words here and there). Unlike most of my other ventures, however, this piece was actually birthed at a reasonable time—before noon, even. Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks belong to J.K. Rowling, despite those delicious baked goods with which I attempted to bribe her.
The Saddest Lines
"To hear the immense night, still more immense without her,
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines,
The saddest lines about her."
- Pablo Neruda
In the absence of her (that immensity which he has imposed), he writes disjointed, maudlin poetry—the stuff of fevered delirium, or the self-delirium of sleepless nights—scrawling over parchment and leaving trails of glistening ink where his weary hands have smudged the words. Later, he pulls pages of parchment from their piles and crosses out the words, carefully, line by cursed line. He knows his words are helpless, as he himself is helpless; in his sleep (and oftener now more lucidly in his waking) he sees brown hair that he has drained of colour. He wakes hollow. This is necessary, this is right, this is safe, his head says, but his hands write more useless poetry, and then cross it away slowly, until his fingers are stained over with ink and his candle descends into a molten mess of wax and there is no more light but the moon's.