Faded Flowers

Faded Flowers – Love Short Story
Photo credit: solrac_gi_2nd from morguefile.com

The rain poured in a drizzle. The words of observance spoken and the casket lowered into the ground. He was gone, now forever.

I just stood there, as I watched him leave the earth for good. And I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach as the tears fell constantly. I tried to swallow the upcoming sobs but was unable to.

I hated myself, for I was the one who killed him.

Regret is a tough thing. It kills inside. And hesitation is worse. Hesitation leads to regret and regret leads to the death of oneself. I watched as a part of me died and vanished into the ground.

“I’ll wait for you,” He said to me as his ship arrived. “Times are hard and this is not the best of our lives yet. I’ll do my best and come back and we’ll have the life we knew we would.” And he kissed the ring he’d slipped onto my finger.

I didn’t have an answer to say, for I was sure that it was a relationship not worth counting on. He left on that ferry for a job in a different city. And as he left, I left the love he’d continue till he died. How could I have known.

“I’ll wait for you!” He waved his arms and wished me a goodbye.

Thirty-six years, he had waited for me, and thirty-six years, I pretended to be dead. He returned a few years later only to get the news that I had died. He was left heartbroken and depressed. His life stopped then and there and he knew he just couldn’t go on. What he never knew was that I was far away, with another man, in another life. While I spent my days living in palaces of gold, he died silently in the wood-house we called our own.

It was just a few days ago that I got the news that he was dying in a letter asking for my presence at his home. I was reluctant and at first arrogant, for he was nothing more to me than a page from my past. But I still, for the name of it, traveled back. I was shocked at what I saw.

He still lived in our old house, with the same old things that we called our possessions. A bunch of roses in the garden which was the most valued thing to me, were still alive. He’d been taking care of them, hoping I’d come back to watch them grow.

I walked back to the same corridors, breathing in the air that we used to breathe, and in the small rooms we dreamed. My heart turned pale when I saw the last of him, dying in his bed. He was unconscious and breathing only through life support. A knife twisted and turned in my heart and all those emotions buried inside of me, arose from their boxes.

It took all my courage to walk into that silent room and take a seat next to him. I was speechless and carrying the corpse of my pride in me. Emotions choking my voice, I whispered in his ear that I was sorry. I held his cold, pale and senseless hand in mine and walked away as quietly as I came.

Now, I just stood and watched from behind the crowd as the last of him left. I admit, I loved him and everything about him, only, three and half decades late. No wonder I still wore that ring he’d given to me on the shore just before he left. And now, gone. I still feel the same warmth I felt when he slipped it on my finger. But mostly, I am haunted by the cold numbness of it.

How I wish when you left that shore, I wish I hadn’t left you there to yourself.

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