Love by Shoshana Levy

t has been exactly two days since I last saw I unearthly, yet comforting connection, her that February winter scene. Standing in front of life-like form substantial enough to keep me Laura’s burial marked the going. At least then I would end of my old life and the be able to feel her once again. start of a new one. The dark grey thunder clouds cramped the sky and my breath was a visible cold Lover’s She was so arrogant to leave me without her touch. But when the coffin stayed steam. Miniscule specks of closed and I felt no angelic snow fluttered down from the sky and dampened the dull grass. The dying winter trees cast long shadows Trace touch I had to compel myself to remember that those are just stories and our lives are nothing but real. across the silent cemetery, bowing for the fallen. Old The graveyard, thick with icy graves scattered across the mist, recreated itself once area, the only evidence of the corpses’ acts of again in the garden of our isolated manor. The shameful abandonment of the living. The gates flowers, once flamingo pink and soothing blue, rudely travelled along the sides, trapping me in were now withered and wilted. I suppose I wasn’t this grim library of bodies. The only noise I could the only one in mourning. I tried desperately register was the faint sound of my hollow, hard not to imagine the nostalgic image of the shaking breath and the slight chirp of a morning beautiful woman with a patched shawl, a pale bird further up the moor. yellow dress complimenting her rosy cheeks and hazel eyes, so full of interest and complexity. Her Perhaps if I had been less overwhelmed with the soft hands clasped around one of the many novels agony of my anxiety, I would have appreciated she praised. Her upright posture a sharp contrast the tranquil scene but naturally, my only focus to my bent-over frame, weighed with the weight was on the slim coffin that lay next to the of my worries. Her blonde curls bouncing with daunting, unnatural gap in the mud. The coffin every movement, matching her tanned skin that was cramped with delicate carvings all along the never held an imperfection. side of the oak wood and a simple bronze plaque on top was inscribed with my love’s initials. I Reality, in its evil self, heavily settled once more believe she always preferred the simpler things. and my fantasies were quickly wiped. Perhaps that’s why she liked me. I was waiting on the coffin, transfixed, waiting for the Did she not realise the consequence of her performance to happen: for an angel to come actions? Was her body so fed up with life I now down and gently lift Laura’s delicate body out of had to suffer? her cage and bring her back to me with all the grace in the world. God would call out her name The ghost was nothing but a cruel demon of my through the miserable grey blanket and I would mind, sent to force me to move on. However the once again be happy. Content. Perhaps, like in feelings she left weren’t misery or depression or the many stories Laura hoarded in her study, she loneliness. All I felt for her was raw resentment would rise pale-faced and haunt me as a ghost, an for her actions. God, I could never hate her, but