death

It is cold. It don’t only feel cold but it looks cold as well. Dead leaves lie on the concrete streets. The wind is picking up. As it blows the flames of the many lit candles placed around a certain street corner flicker. More than the majority of them are out but a select few continue to burn as the afternoon starts to turn to evening. Next to the candles lies flowers, long dead due to lack of water and moisture as the cold had dried it up days ago. In the middle of the candles and flowers lies a picture, as if the flowers and candles grew from the picture itself. This nucleus of these objects is a picture of a boy, not much older than 16 by the looks of him. The sun goes down a lot earlier than usual today, as if to say that it doesn’t see the point in trying to warm up the planet anymore for today. As the sun sets a woman wrapped in a black overcoat approaches the street corner, flowers in hand. She stops at the corner where the flowers lay. Her facial expression hasn’t changed one bit. As she takes out a solitary rose from her coat another figure enters the scene. A man this time, draped in gray. The man walks down the street to the same corner and abruptly stops as he spies the woman. He continues after the woman has spotted him and they meet eye to eye at the corner. “Lorraine, its been 6 times already today you have been here, you need to go home and rest. This isn’t healthy” advises the man. “I know, I just like to see the flowers, it makes me feel like I am here, you know, with him. Like I still haven’t left his side” states Lorraine. The man kisses Lorraine on the forehead as her eyes start to tear up just a little for a teardrop to run down her cheek. “He wouldn’t like you worrying about him you know. I am sure he’s watching us and I am sure he doesn’t like seeing us like this” says the man. “I remember when he passed his driving test. He was so happy, all he wanted to do was drive. Every day he would ask me if I needed to run any errands just so he could drive me around town. I often wonder why we let him drive at night at such an early age.” Lorraine wipes another tear as she remembers why her son is no longer with her. The man looks at the picture of his only son and thinks about all the times he let him back out of the driveway growing up. There is a long pause between the two as they hold hands and look upon the scene of that fateful day when their son was taken from them. Words can’t describe the pain they feel as they remember the day they had to bury their only child. They look into each other’s eyes and they cant help but smile a little. They embrace and hold for what seems like years to them. They are deeply pained but their love only grows stronger from each embrace. They lay their flowers down and walk down the street hand in hand. They came separate but they leave as one.