"Delilah," he uttered in that unusually calm voice that always defined him. No answer came. At last, he listened to his own heartbeat, slowing down like a broken clock, and whispered for the last time, "You were beautiful... my queen."
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A silent breeze blew, as quiet as the woman in white kneeling before the grave. She stared at her hands in an oddly still way, as if trying to read something from them. Then, her gaze shifted to the tombstone, and she began silently tracing the faded inscription that had once been carved into the stone.
Footsteps echoed through the stillness, unfamiliar yet somehow familiar. A figure stopped before the woman. Those footsteps... they felt both foreign and known. That scent. That silence.
With tear-filled eyes, she slowly raised her gaze toward the tall figure standing before her, and at that moment, she understood. He had been there all along, for ten long years, sitting beneath the old oak tree bent with age, quietly watching her—just like the lamppost that kept silent watch over the grave from above.
"Delilah..." That voice... It was calm and quiet, penetrating her very soul, forcing her to kneel.
"Tobias..." she whispered back, as if the angel of silence had once again passed between them. She wrapped her arms tightly around the ghost’s legs and wept—loudly, as no one ever had before. It was as if all the world’s pain had found a home within her, and she cried, she cried for everyone.
She cried from joy and sorrow, from hope and disappointment. She cried for loneliness, for pride, for longing, for anger. She cried out of fear... And then, silence returned—just as the grave had always been silent and would forever remain.
The lamppost went dark, though it had never truly been lit. And the ghost disappeared, for he had never truly been there.
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From maelo 🫶🏽🩵
