Sophia

      Hearing “I love you” for the first time in a new relationship is always unreal, especially so if you can say it back and truly mean it. When Sofia heard those three precious words escape the lips of the man she loved more than anyone else, the moment could not have been more idyllic.

      It was Christmas Eve; a gentle lush of snow was falling as the night was slowly engulfing the day. Derek had surprised her that morning standing outside her door with a dozen roses held proudly in his hand.  He had whisked off her feet and held her tight, breathing sweet nothings in her ear; this was how love was meant to be she thought.

      Now as they swept across the ice-rink, their body’s working in unison Sofia marvelled at how perfect a day it had been. It all just seemed so unreal.

        Unreal, that was exactly how she had felt as he whirled her around, holding her tight so she wouldn’t fall. She wished the memory could last through all her years, but looking back now it was the feelings she remembered more than anything. Memories were as transient as life itself.

      She looked down at her hands, shrivelled and lined with age and wished that Derek were there to hold them like he had been for so long. But he was gone. Taken from her when she hadn’t been ready to say good-bye. The doctors called it cancer; she had called it something else. It had crudely destroyed her one happiness in life; everything was meaningless now without Derek there to give it purpose.

      She looked at the figure before her in the mirror; it looked familiar to her like the shadow of a person she once knew. She watched it move as she moved, fix the pleats of her dress, brush back a stray white hair. She placed her brush on the table next to her and picked up the small photograph that captured that evening on the ice rink. She placed it in her pocket. Walking to the front door, she opened it and slowly slipped out shutting it behind her. The bang echoing in the empty house. She kept walking.

      With silent distinction she crossed the intersection in front of a multitude of cars, her dress billowing in the wind and wispy white hair streaming. Carefully she continued forward until she reached the mid-section of the road, she stopped. She took a moment to whisper a quick prayer, a tear slowly etching a route on her face she held the photo in her pocket. She closed her eyes and took a blind step out in front of the oncoming cars.