So here is a story that I wrote while making tea. It is amazing how much leaves can contribute to brain activity.
A Way of Dying.
I first saw her at the gates. They were your conventional cemetery gates; made of wrought iron and monumental.
She just stood there looking at me with those placid grey eyes. The fog around her was dense. She seemed to be it's creation- the child of the atmosphere.
I was drawn to her- her posture, her high boots, her raven long hair and those piercing placid grey eyes.
In the light of the moon she looked like a dream; glowing like a dying star.
I walked towards her and she stood still. If the soft breeze didn't make her hair dance, I would have sworn that she was a statue.
It seemed like a lifetime till I reached her. To gaze into those placid grey eyes.
*
The moonlight guided my gaze towards him. His ruby red hair glistening in the silver rays. He was like a shadow- A radiant shadow that destroyed all the others around it.
We didn't even need to speak; he knew what to do. All I had to do was wait as he drifted towards me.
*
Ralph snapped back to reality. He was living his dream. She was captured within his arms now- like a butterfly in it's larva. And yet she held the ferocity of a bird of prey- one that could vanish at any moment.
She seemed to fit into him perfectly- and yet she seemed miles away.
Ralph wanted to comfort her, to tell her it was going to be alright in the end, but his conscience forbade him from doing so. She was much too precious.
Ralph knew she was in misery. That some part of her was not with him. But he savoured every little bit of her. Every little bit that he had- right there in his arms.
He had only met her moments ago and yet he felt as if he knew her for all his existence.
"Who are you?," he whispered
Her placid grey eyes gazed into his. They shone so bright and looked so cold that Ralph suppressed a shiver.
She laced her fingers through his hair-pulling his face towards her. Their foreheads touched.
Ralph felt a surge of energy pass through him. He sealed his eyes shut.
Foreign images flashed through his mind. There was blueness-and patterns of gold. The form sunlight takes under water.
Everything was so peaceful and yet Ralph couldn't ignore that unnerving sensation of suffocation-of having life sucked out of his very lungs.
*
Ralph opened his eyes with a start. He was gasping for air the way a person drowning might.
He glanced about him. Disoriented for a moment. It all came back to him when he saw her- those placid grey eyes and that raven black hair.
"Evangeline," he said- That was all that he could say.
Evangeline smiled as she knelt down beside him.
"31" is all she said as she closed Ralph's eyes as he drifted off into a deep slumber.
*
I met her every night after that one. At the same time- the same place- in the same way.
The electricity grew stronger with every day.
We never spoke a word to each other- There was never any need.
The only thing she would say was "31"....and always before I fell asleep and awoke in my bed the next morning.
The days passed like clouds on a windy day. I felt at home with her...it was ecstasy.
*
Ralph woke up to a gloomy day. The room was so dark that it took a while for his eyes to adjust.
As he got out of his bed his feet brushed against silk. He felt around for the object and his hands caught a rose. It had a frayed black ribbon tied to it with a small piece of paper.
It was a part of a calendar-his calendar-and the date said 31.
That was today.
*
Ralph hurried down the coblestone path towards the cemetery. He was late.
He couldn't bear the thought of missing even a single moment with Evangeline. He held the rose tightly in his hand. The thorns cut into his skin-drops of blood stained the paper crumpled around the stem.
He reached the gates and arrived at their usual meeting place. Evangeline was nowhere to be seen.
Ralph leaned against a gravestone. It's cold marble was soothing to his skin.
He gazed out towards the lake that guarded the cemetery. The moonlight caused the steely surface to glow with an ethereal light.
That's when he saw her. Her long lustrous raven black hair. It was Evangeline. Her back was towards him but her knew it was he. She was a part of him now and he knew himself better than anyone else.
He started towards her but as he stepped forward something pulled him back.
Ralph looked at his feet. There was a chain- made of a glowing white metal. It held onto him- it's other end attached to the gravestone he was leaning on.
Ralph looked up helplessly towards Evangeline. He wanted to call out to her- to say her name- but she was already looking at him. Her grey eyes were now blue. They were a blue that of sapphires and a deeply oxygenated sky.
She smiled at him sadly as she walked deeper into the water. Her hair surrounded her like a blanket of dark ink.
Within minutes she vanished-under the surface of the water- like a shadow in the dark.
*
Ralph sank to the ground. He couldn't breathe. The air was being sucked out of his lungs. It was Evangeline- she was dying. And somehow part of him was dying too.
He gasped and gasped relentlessly until finally he exhaled- the final breath his living part would donate to this world.
The chain around his ankle had vanished. Ralph tasted sour in his mouth. He looked about him, trying to make sense of the situation- to verify if it was real.
His eyes fell on the cool marble of the gravestone.
It was so perfectly clear to him now-so simple-so beautiful.
Before him lay the gravestone of
Evangeline Grey
Lover of Ralph Augustine
September 3rd 1973- 31st October 1993.
