03-16-2018, 05:29 PM
He moves the way the dead should – a phantom of shadow dust and obliteration. His mane (brushed by the hands of shadows – and not his mother’s loving touch) had grown longer since I last saw him. No longer the long-legged kid of night-terrors and self-doubt but a young adult; haughty and brash. But his eyes, ink-black and dispassionate were the same as always. I can still see the fear there in their turgid depths, the fear he has buried behind wolf-teeth and shadow and filigrees of steely resolution.
“Mother” comes that husky-soft voice – too many years inhaling smoke. Too many years standing in the fire and trying to die –
I wish I hadn´t failed him.
“Son” I answer, a trembling old thing, too full of fears and regret to be of use to him. “How have you been? I haven´t seen you in a while”
I wonder if he hears the fear in my voice, if he notices the diffidence in the downward cast of my gaze.
“There´s something you should know” he deadpans – for when did he ever care enough to return my concerns?
In my old age, I have grown selfish - made brittle and weary by sick interims of time. I have been a selfish gardener – tending to my flowers of serenity and peace without noticing how the lands around them started to rot and wither away. What have we done.
All I ever wanted was to live out my days in ignorant bliss. I deserve this, I told myself; deserve the layers of love and peace and rest that I have so carefully wrapped around myself. I wanted to lay in quiet contemplation under sunlit skies, next to my beloved.
And so I had – and things were quiet for some time. Oh, there had been the children; the daughter I had not born but was mine all the same, and our peculiar son of nightmares and shadows – but I had paid them little attention after the first year. I told myself that children grow – they must learn to fend for themselves, must try to fly far from the nest. And I had let them go – with a sigh of relief and a whispered “good luck.”
We had kept to ourselves; Kavi and I. So complacent in each other’s company that I felt no need to interact with the rest of Hyaline’s inhabitants. I had never expressed the hope that I was meant to live out the rest of my days here; for it was not a hope but a certainty and a certainty which seemed all too obvious for words – I could not be denied it, for I always intended to come here (or so it seems to me now.)
Yet, there is no regret boiling in my blood as I return to my beloved. The peace he has brought me is a hard thing to fracture – even now, as I fight the darkness of our son with my own steady, pulsing light. Oh, he is the thing in my soul that glitters and glimmers like stars on cloudless nights, boundless loyalty and blind faith. Faith – the belief of justice, the religion which I follow solely with my heart and soul; was this the divine justice that had been promised to us? Was this the reason why I felt so secure even when death and destruction were just a fact of our lives, another turn in the road that seemed never-ending, unfaltering to no end.
My eyes were alive and alight with longing as I traipsed through the boughs of Hyaline. The soft breath of wind that seemed to follow me these days gently rolled up my side and passed through my unkempt mane. I call to him as I reach the small copse of trees I know he likes to rest under, and there is hope etched within my eyes, unbound and vibrant as I find my place in his embrace. He is always there with me; running his fingers through my hair as if he was standing right next to me in another form; showing me a passion and love that was undying, that was unyielding even when I am undeserving of such emotions. I smiled, oh how softly my lips formed into that content smile that spoke a thousand words – the very passion and love that was this world, the very music that filtered through the trees, the requiem that the doves sung so beautifully in tune with. It was as if he had returned for one reason, like a ghost that only I could see, like a soft light which shone through the darkness to guide my steps, like a soft touch against my skin, placed there with such serenity and adoration that I always came to believe nothing would ever come to harm me again.
”I missed you” I whisper, so silly in my mud-brown triviality and old age. How long have we been apart this time, minutes, hours if not less? But it is always too long for me.
Yet, our perfect moment was to be shattered by the news I come bearing, and my brow turns solemn again.
”I just spoke with our son”