Eternal despair

Alone, in the middle of the night, I spotted an old, deteriorated wooden bench. It looked like it had been there forever. I sat down on it and looked around, thoughtfully contemplating all the silent graves in this bluish dark moonlight. I stared at the majestic oak trees with their imposing size, sentries in the night, guarding the secrets of the dead.

I also thought about all the things these hundreds of year old trees could tell us. And would they share their infinite wisdom with us, even if they could talk. Strange thoughts ran through my mind in this cloudless night with millions of stars watching me.

Everything looked mysterious and magical- but in a surprisingly welcoming way. I was reminded of a psalm which I heard often when I was child:

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me."

For a long time I sat on the bench in the middle of the cemetery: still, peaceful, completely alone. And the more I sat there the sharper also developed my senses. My eyes started to notice more details in the graveyard, and even my senses of smelling and tasting seemed to have reached their peak. The smell is hard to describe, it was the smell of old earth mixed with the intense fragrance that surely came from a nearby oak tree.

Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw a young woman, kneeling down in front of a simple, roughly hewn gravestone. My eyes opened wider. I stirred. The palms of my hands began to sweat. There she was, hands folded in prayer, staring at the ground, her long dark hair covering her face. But, although she was only a few feet away, she seemed oblivious to my presence.

She was a dark and mysterious figure surrounded by the shadows that sprang from the dark blue moonlight. I was overwhelmed by how surreal it was. I stared at this young women in old-fashioned clothing. It slowly dawned on me that it must be a spiritual apparition. I refuse to use the word ghost, because there was nothing scary about her at all. On the contrary, I felt a deep sense of sadness and hopelessness when I saw her there kneeling on the ground not far from me.

I didn't feel any fear, so I decided to approach this female manifestation of sadness to learn about her story. I have never been in such a situation before, so I was very hesitant at first, to say the least.

When I took a step closer to the apparition, I realized that I couldn't speak anymore. Nor could I take another step further. Inexplicably, I was frozen in time. There is no other way to explain it.

After what seemed an eternity, I regained a piece of my consciousness. I put all my courage together, and finally asked her what her Name was. But my voice was just a whisper, hardly recognizable to me.

At first I didn't get any reaction. The grieving apparition also appeared to be frozen in time. I summoned up all my courage and said in a stronger tone that I was determined to help her, regardless of the severity of her problem.

There was a long silence after that. My hands and entire body grew colder. The wind whistled through the trees. But suddenly she slowly turned her head. With soulful eyes, she found my frozen gaze. My heart started beating faster. She smiled at me. I looked right into her eyes. Then I was swept away, and it was not by the bitterly cold wind. I had never in my life seen such a beautiful young women, as she was kneeling there in her white dress, in a blanket of moonlit bluish white snow.

The wind whipped and whistled. Blowing snow flew all around us. Candles blackened. darkness grew darker. I was thrown into a trance. And in spite of the worsening weather, I just couldn't take my eyes off her - her smile, her soulful blue eyes, her smooth olive skin, her ever shining long black hair. It was mesmerizing.