Untitled, again

A dark clothed figure stood in the rain, gazing at the ground. The golden leaves were trampled and stuck to the earth. Her bangs were plastered to her forehead as she stood there, silent. To her right was a handmade grave marker that had seen a summer of wear. To her left, the ground was churned up and a large flat rock marked the spot. A great pine tree’s branches reached out, sheltering the two graves. The old and the new. She knelt down with tears that could have been mistaken for rain drops, placed her hand on the wet, cold rock, and murmured a quiet goodbye. “Cold, wet; I hope he doesn’t feel like that, in the soaked ground. I hope his mind is somewhere else, free, racing through sunny fields, with waving grasses and gently dappled forests, with sun warmed rocks and crystal clear pools.” She wondered, smiling slightly. An icy drop of water ran down her back and she retreated to the house. Standing next to the cold wood stove, staring at where he had been that morning, stiff, she thought of the irony; he had died of starvation, his stubborn refusal to eat, that was the anemia’s fault, but yet he had lain dead next to his food and water bowls. She could feel the chill now, all throughout the house as if it was mourning. For a moment she felt the gray, dank, cold would overwhelm her, engulf her, she would be lost in an endless rainstorm. Opening the woodstove door she grabbed fistfuls of newspaper and jammed them through the door, crumpled. She added cardboard and wood as she unloaded her thoughts and grief into the stove. Holding the lighter in her left hand she inhaled deeply, clicked the lighter and let it all go. Just let it all go, up with the smoke and flames. The warmth of the fire spread to her and warmed her cold depressed center. “I’ve survived this rain storm.” She thought “The sun will be out soon.”