He was holding her hand tightly. He felt right just being with her, but there was something in the air that put him ill at ease. Something like apprehension. Like the calm before the storm or that feeling you get before a tornado. Everything still and perfect, but it made your chest tighten in anticipation.

They kissed under the protection of the forest and pine. The smell of the forest was intoxicating. They walked down the road and motion and colour had an almost surreal quality to it.

The feeling in his chest tightened and her palms grew damp. She could feel it too. In a terrific noise the sky broke apart and came crashing down around them. The shards were sharper than glass and bits of diamond a million times more brilliant. He stood untouched with existance scattered around him. Her beauty was tainted, yet at the same time enhanced in a morbid way by the rivulets of blood running down her face. The blood dripped slowly and in a way beautifully off of her finger and a single drop of her life spilled on the waxy green leaf of nearby plant. Her hand rose slowly to his face and touched his cheek, leaving a perfect trail of blood. She blinked out of existance with a look of understanding in her eyes. He raised his eyes to rest them upon what lay beyond existance but before he saw it he woke up.

He was in his house, in his living room. His old dog was lying next to the fire. So picturesque and peaceful. His bones ached with age and the weight of time.

He stared at the glowing embers and watched ashe rise and fall like snow. He thought upon her face, a face of unrivaled beauty and eloquence. Her eyes always held such bitter feelings but when the left him it was changed into complete understanding of all she was wondered about and more. More knowledge than she could ever ask for.

He let himself be mesmirized by the fire and gave into the tempation and let his eyes close. He felt the understanding and knowledge at the corners of his existance. The darkness was closing in and he could see her bloody fingerprints upon his face now.

For a moment there was stillness and silence that filled the room. So beautiful in that moment that he lay there. The fire paused its feirce movement and crackleing and the embers stoped falling and waited in the air. The sun paused just beyond the horizon to pay respects to one so lost who had now found home. He was gone and all he had accomplish or witnessed was gone, or so it seemed.

But in that forest, beyond the bend in the road. Under the protection of the forest and pines. There is a drop of life on a green, waxy leaf. And a shard of the sky. Waiting.

Contents Copyright 2004 Kayleigh C., All Rights Reserved.

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