The Beauty

         As the black and moonless heavens cleaved apart their darkest clouds, I stood transfixed in undisguised wonder, enraptured underneath a roof that had long since ceased to fulfill its purpose. Yet I did not mind the rain which fell upon my brow, nor did I pay heed to the arcing rivulets of water which did snake across the noticeably sloping, partly sundered floor. The locale was not mine, after all, and the dilapidated condition of the aging building around me did not weigh upon my heart. It was also fact that I would be abandoning it forthwith, never again to return to this abandoned, lonesome place. But for the moment, that forever moment, I was bound by what tattered remnants of my soul remained, pitiful and few though they were, and I was bade to remain, locked in captivated wonder as my eyes rested upon a sight of awe-inspiring glory.
         Before me was a sculpted image, graven by no hand of man. Profound was the unnatural beauty of its form, provoking was the exquisite sorrow within its eyes. If I had found it within a museum or hall of ancient antiquity, I would have passed its beauty by. Had I seen it under a shining sun, I would not have lingered. Had it not been clear and illuminated, I would not have stayed. Had it been immaculately cleaned and presented, I would not have realized what was placed before me.
         But it was a darkest night, so the beauty was lit only by silent, distant lightening. It was raining, so the glory was magnified within heaven’s downpour. And the dust of the aging concrete had mixed with the rain, thickly forming a grey, liquid mud which did caress the cheek of the image, and so the beauty’s haunted eyes, with the aid of Earth and Sky, wept. And in those tears I saw the whole of the universe bent in effort to achieve that moment of release, to show me that beauty at that moment in a manner which would never appear again. Within hours, the beauty would be gone, the night would vanish, and the concrete dust, now washed away by the deluge, would no longer be allowed to grant the graven image its tears of stone.
         Then, as abruptly as it gripped my heart in rapture, it released me back into the realm of real, and I was conscious to the world around me once more. I looked again upon the hoisted image, now from within the restrictions of reality and released a breath I had not realized I was holding. The beauty was already fading, the tears were now spreading across the face, smothering the image in mud. With fevered thought did I grip the memory of the forever moment within the fingers of my mind, binding it to me and to my soul so that in the darkness that would one day come, I might empower myself with the memory of that image. Of that beauty.
         As the heavens began to shore up their floodgates and prepare the way for the dawn, I turned my back upon the grey form hoisted under the sagging, broken roof. I clenched my coat tightly to my chest, as though attempting to prevent the memory of that beauty from escaping from its birdcage within my breast. I left that which was no longer beautiful behind. I left that graven nothing. I left the hardening mud. And I left the blood.