Jessica lay on the blue plastic slide in the park playground, in the shade of the tall and ancient oak, that was starting to have shoots of new leaves.
It was still cold, a bite in the air, but spring was here, and all was turning green again, new life was coming.
The morning was passing into afternoon, the sky went from dim velvet to soft and powdery baby blue.
The clouds above Jessica were ancient airships from an age of magic, long ago, before death came into the world.
He was a whisper now, a voice fading in her head, a face kept new and whole only by the photographs she’d taken.
Spring was here, and life was beginning, but he was gone forever, the only green that belonged to him was the shoots of new grass on his grave.
She watched the sky, laying on the blue plastic slide, the powder blue above like his sad, sad eyes.
She felt almost as if she was floating into that gentle sky, that she was weightless, and the world could not hold her.
He was gone, and she was trying to touch the ground, not let herself leave the earth, because he could not touch the earth, he put himself inside it.
He was gone, and she no longer remembered the sensation of holding his hand, their hot and sweaty palms grasping for comfort.
The sky could swallow you up, take you up inside it, leave your empty shell behind and take your soul inside itself.
She watched the sky, and tried to stay grounded to the earth, because he was gone, and she didn’t want to follow him.
Maybe one day, at the end of a long life, they’d meet again, were it was an age of magic, and all the tears had been wiped away.
On the airships that were the clouds, they’d fly away, and be whole again, and healed, and be given the childhood they never had.
faithlesspaladin 