𝓘 𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓭 𝓱𝓲𝓶.

I loved him.

The smell of rosewood and paint is spread throughout the small studio, accompanied with the sweet perfume of lilies from the open back door leading to the garden. The balmy moonlight filters through the glass walls and a cool spring breeze brushes my face as I flip through the album of pictures.  I take out my favourite photo. The person sitting in the photograph was none other than him, he's beauty was so enchanting I thought I might melt away into nothingness, a beauty that was unspotted from the world. The picture so lifelike as if he might just step out of it and flash one of his magical smiles, pushing away strands of his hair out of his eyes, he didn't seem real but he was and so overpoweringly beautiful as if Michelangelo's David had come to life. The picture gleamed in the moonlight, his ivory skin stretched over his high cheekbones. The picture was black and white but I could sense his glittering deep blue eyes, I stare and stare at it, finding myself unable take my eyes of it. I remember when it was taken, on our wedding. And I remember when I met him, It was so clear that he was the only one for me. He seemed almost like a dream, like I was imagining him. Sometimes I wish I was imagining him, that way I could be with him forever. But he was real and all the moments I spent with him keep coming back, he was charismatic, enigmatic, magentic. He was like this hybrid, mix of a man who couldn't contain himself and
I loved him,
I loved him,
I loved him
and I still love him. I remember that day we got into the car on that fateful day, he gave me his enchanting smile that made me feel as if heaven was truly a place on earth. and all the people cheered for him, they loved him too. Bouqets and letters were showered at the car, the air was filled with celebration and joy.
In a second it was all gone.
Time stood still, my heart stopped. A loud shot was heard and I watched in cold-blooded horror as his blood splashed on my pink wool suit. There was another...
Shot.
Shot.
Shot.
 I watched as his smiling head exploded, it's innards flying around me, his limp body fell on me as I watched the people's laughs of glee turn into horror stricken screeches. My mind was slipping away from me, only thing I could think of was climbing on the car hood to catch pieces of his scattered brain. And I remember clutching his bleeding head to my heart. I remember whispering into his ear

"We're gonna get through this Johnny. Johnny I love you, stay with me Johnny."

I don't know if he heard me, but in that moment, in that car, he was with me, and as long as he was with me, there was hope. That car ride to the hospital haunts me, his bloody head lay in my lap and I kept trying to cover the wound with my head. I remember as they took him away in a grey stretcher, the last glimmer of hope dying with him.
I remember the pink wool suit that he picked for me that day, now covered in his blood. I remember wiping the blood off my face in the vanity mirror. The exact mirror in front of which just hours ago I had applied lispstick so exitedly, the same mirror in which Johnny would look at me.
But now the image in the mirror was different, it was just me, no sight of him. He was gone. gone. gone. They say if you repeat a word enough times it turns into gibberish, such a sad word, gone. It's so terribly final, so horridly ultimate.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.

That was all a millenia ago, atleast that's what it feels like. It's been uncountable days since I've been sitting here, staring at it, taking all of it in. Time has lost it's meaning to me. If only images could speak, if only his scarlet lips would part and speak in his velvety voice.

My body is stiff as a rock, but I dare not move, I dare not blink or take my eyes off it, this picture was my most prized possession, I would not even a single soul other than me lay their eyes on it. This photograph and him were mine only, mine and only mine.
My eyes burn like coals and my skin becomes paler and paler, slowly losing all its color. Of course people pay their condolences, their pitiful glances making me sick. Sometimes I wish I was dead so I would not have to bear life without him, and in a sense I am dead, I could never go back to living life. He had bewitched me. So, here I sit on the dusty cushioned diwan, still wearing the bloody pink suit and stare and stare at the worn picture, waiting for him to come to life and take me away with him, to his world.

The End