Therapy

He stands at the window of the cheap hotel room he's renting, looking out at at town that's not his. So many faces pass by below, young, old, black, white. He watches a pair of young lovers walking hand in hand, oblivious to every thing and everyone but each other. He spies a man and his son playing in the park and an old woman peddling roses by the sidewalk. He looks upon all of this with a dispassionate eye. His attention goes back to the lovers, now sitting on a bench and holding each other close. His heart pangs sharply as his memories come, unbidden, to the front of his mind.

He remembers her hair, Irish fire in his hands, burning in the afternoon sunshine as they walked in a park not unlike the one he is watching. Her sapphire eyes, so lively and warm, kinda and trusting as they pierced his soul. Her laugh, musical and soothing. He remembers it all, and more.

The first shot hits the young woman right above the left eye, taking most of her skull with it and coating her lover with bits of brain and bone. The lover has just enough time to make a single, choked cry before the second shot comes, entering his right temple. It enters leaving a hole the size of a pinky nail, leaving a dinner plate size tunnel in it's wake.

A single tear slides down the man's face as he puts the rifle back in it's case. It wasn't her, it NEVER was her, not since that night years ago when he had come home and found her gone.

But one day it WOULD be.