Losing
I don't even know if anyone reads these anymore
"amused"
He gripped the bar a little tighter, his hands turning white from his effort. A hand gently ran down his tense muscles and he felt himself automatically relaxing under the touch.
"I thought you'd left." He had tried to sound gruff, but his voice only came out a whispered desperate plea.
He turned around to face the woman his heart had been vying after for years. She was probably more beautiful today than the day he'd first seen her, but something told him it was only because he was biased. There was a half smile on her lips that had always intrigued him and set his blood boiling, but all he could feel today was a deep sense of loss.
"Why couldn't you stay forever?" he asked her.
She made no effort to reply and he knew that if he reached out to try and touch her she would probably just go straight through his fingers. Hallucinations had their down side, but if it meant he could see her, he figured it was worth it in the end.
He stopped trying to talk to her and just revelled in the idea of her presence. A warmth flushed in his heart and he felt the world around him for the first time in weeks. The ethereal form glided closer and hugged him from behind, her arms wrapping around his body like they used to. He could practically smell her scent on the air again and a tear fell from his face to form a perfect circular dot on the hard asphalt beneath his feet.
The sounds from children playing on the beach made him look away from the setting sun over the ocean and look towards the other people around. There was a couple sitting on the beach, hugging each other as the sun set into the sea. Children were running around, trying to stay a little longer while parents watched proudly at them despite their gruff scoldings.
He felt a stab of wistfulness as he wondered if he would have ever had a chance to do something as special as that with the woman of his dreams. He watched as the couple kissed, not caring how many people may or may not have been watching. The father of the family finally swooped in, catching the children around their middles and lugging them towards the car. The children squealed the entire time and the mother just laughed as she followed them with the rest of their beach gear.
"I miss you," he whispered to the wind. The figure beside him shifted slightly as the breeze blew a little too strongly. She had withdrawn from around him and was resting against the railing, her hair gently blowing in the same breeze that reminded him how surreal she really was.
A couple of seconds of watching her shimmer in and out of reality and he looked back at the setting sun to see that it had cast the few clouds in the sky into a deep purple colour. A bird flew alone in the sky and squawked. The couple were laughing to themselves, both of them entwined to the point where you wondered if there was even a molecule of space between them.
He went back to gripping the rail, wishing that he hadn't lost what they seemed to have in abundance.
Her laugh filled his ears as he groggily tried to get his eyes to open just a fraction. Before he even had a chance to move, she had jumped onto the bed, and hovered over him with an infectious smile. She bit the bottom right part of her lip and he had to resist the temptation to kiss her for the sake of finding out what on earth was going on.
"I don't suppose you'll tell me what's going on," he said wryly. He tried not to breathe on her, fully aware that he had morning breath and no one should be subjected to that pain, though admittedly she'd never made a comment about it before.
"You'll have to get up and see," she said. He rolled his eyes and tried to look around her. She just followed his movements and blocked his view. Giving up on looking around her, he reached up and grabbed hold of her waist, quickly rolling them over so that he was on top.
She didn't seem particularly shocked, but then again, nothing ever really shocked her. He noticed the sultry smile she was giving him now and couldn't help but give into temptation and kiss her. He tried to avoid using tongue, but she was demanding and soon the kiss escalated until hands were clutching at clothes.
Managing to find some semblance of balance, he pulled back and gasped for air. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly as she tried to control her breathing, but her eyes told him that she had no intention of controlling anything for a while.
"Well now that I'm up," he said, smirking at her. She didn't seem to register what he meant until he'd jumped off the bed and had already made his way out the door.
He heard her yell at him from the bed but he just laughed out loud. Setting about doing his morning drill, he got rid of his morning breath and ran his fingers through his hair to look remotely presentable. As far as he was concerned, he didn't have any intention of leaving the house anyway.
He had just finished washing his face after shaving when she walked in and wrapped her arms around him. She started to draw little pictures on his bare chest and he just marvelled at how perfect they looked in the mirror.
"Hungry?" he asked. His stomach was mildly empty but he wasn't referring to that when he looked into her eyes.
She just gave him a half smile as her hands started drifting down to his boxers. He had never been as glad as he was at that moment that he'd managed to marry the love of his life.
Sometimes life dealt blows far worse than dying. He had planned so much, so far into the future he didn't remember that sometimes the best laid plans were the ones made up within that second before action. There was a time when he'd been spontaneous and they'd decide to go down to the beach, for no other reason than because they can, within ten minutes of waking up. Some of those days had been spent completely in bed just because neither of them felt particularly inclined to get up and start the day. He missed those times more than any other, but in the end, he missed everything.
How was he supposed to know that three years after their marriage, she'd have an accident. There was no chance to say good bye, no chance to tell her how much he loved her, nothing except the hopeful knowledge that she already knew...wherever she was.
He had cried so hard that first night. Every second without her felt like pure agony and the only thing that kept him alive was the understanding that she would have wanted him to keep going, though to what end, he had no idea. After the first few nights of loneliness and insomnia, he had realised that sometimes the best way to sleep was complete exhaustion. He put all his sorrow and all his pain into exercising so that when he had finished a day, all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep.
Despite all his exhaustion though, nothing could stop the dreams. And with the dreams came the loneliness of waking up in an empty bed. It had taken him almost three months before he could look at a single piece of her clothing without his frail heart shattering once more. After that first three months, he realised that maybe he could hold himself together long enough to make this whole world work.
There were still days when all he wanted to do was lie down and die, but gradually they grew further and further apart. By the end of the anniversary of her death, he had managed to pull himself back together to form, at the very least, a figure of a man. Not quite the man he used to be, but hopefully a man that would be able to make something of himself again.
On that day of her death, he held a single pebble in his hand as he walked to her tombstone. He kissed it and lay it upon her grave with a reverence which seemed to imply that it was much more than just a pebble. He may not have been Jewish, but he believed that the pebble would hold a much stronger meaning to him than any flower or incense ever could, though he still burnt a few sticks of incense in her memory anyway. Neither of them were Chinese, but he liked the idea of her coming down to dine with him for another night.
He watched her hand trembling as she clutched onto a picture that he couldn't see. Everything in his body was telling him to go towards her and hold her until she stopped shaking, to wipe the tears now falling down her face away, and maybe kiss the top of her head to tell her how much he loved her. If he hadn't felt so useless he probably would have done that, but he hadn't. He had stood there like an idiot, mute and unmoving as he watched her tears falling, her body shaking and her world crumbling. If there was any moment in his life that he regretted, this would probably be the one.
Every time he sees her picture all he can really remember is her smile, but when he thinks about her properly, the only thing he ever remembers is the moment when he'd failed to love her like she deserved to be loved. Maybe every moment you lose is the moment you regret the most, but in the end, she wasn't here and she'd never be here again.
His hand gripped the knife a little tighter. Killing himself had been a thought that always circulated in his mind, but he just never acted on it, but today everything felt so much worse. Today he couldn't forget how much of a failure he is. Today he couldn't remember the good things he'd done in his life. Today she wasn't here to remind him that he was perfect just the way he is. It's the first time he's felt like this since she left, but it doesn't matter anymore because he had plans to go to where she was.
"Omnia vincit amor," he whispered to the frigid air around him.
As his eyes slipped close, the weight of the lids too much to carry, he swore he saw her worried face watching him just above him. Then he forgot everything as his spirit dispersed into the turn of the world.
Translation: Omnia vincit amor - Love conquers all
