Fading Twilight

The last rays of sun dimmed and flickered before they disappeared altogether, snuffed out by the horizon. The sky glimmered like a arching kaleidoscope following the dying sun, with warmer shades of yellow and orange bleeding into scarlets and crimsons that finally faded away as deep blues, violets, and jet black.

In the fading light, tombstones and grave-markers cast longer, ominous shadows over the sparse, straggly earth. Trees and thickets became indistinct stretches of pitch-black darkness. Somewhere else, the haunting call of a lone owl could be heard. A foggy, hazy mist gathered and slowly percolated into hollows and dips. The cold, solemn face of the moon looked down from its high place in the sky.

The wrought-iron gate creaked open and clanged shut. A woman and a little girl wearing clothes and veils of black quietly entered the graveyard.

Their shoes gently thumped on trodden grass and dirt making their way through the mist. The shadows yawned longer and darker and the mist grew thick and heavy around them. Side-by-side they walked, hand-in-hand, step-by-step, never running, never stopping. In a place where the grass was tall and the thickets sprawled wide, they slowed. The pair came to a halt before the hanging branches of a great weeping willow.

For a moment, it seemed as if both woman and girl would collapse. Gently, slowly, as if restraining tears, the woman laid down a small bundle, and the girl did the same. A bundle of red roses. A bundle of white lilies. For a moment, the pair stood together in silence, in peace.

Then, there was a sudden rushing of wind. A faint sprinkling of scintillating stars briefly glimmered in the fading sky before the wind-driven clouds cloaked them from sight.

Side-by-side, hand-in-hand, step-by-step, the pair walked farther and farther away. Their figures became more and more indistinct, until both faded into the night fog.

The restless wind howled and howled as it picked up, rattling skeletal tree branches, and sending dead leaves skittering hither and thither. Under the towering willow tree, next to a hollowed-out briar bush, lay a simple grey tombstone. A single, lonely grave was hidden in fading light's shadow.

Lloyd Forger

(? - 1963)

Lived in war,

Died for peace.