The Timing of the Loss of a Love

Chapter One

The snow fluttered down from the dark sky, slow and calm. Every now and then a breeze blew the flakes into a mad whirl wind. Tiny tornados of soft, confused flakes.

Each flake represented a thought to Acrista as she walked through the garden. Her confused thoughts whirled inside her much like the breeze blowing the snowflakes. And when the breeze died down, so did the flakes, and they found their places back on the deadness of the ground.

How was she to cope with this new life? The dark void left in her soul she found hard to fill. Happiness felt like a light behind many locked doors. Something only her imagination could come up with.

Her feet guided her through the garden without her having to tell them what to do.

Oh, how she missed the people shed known before her life had changed those three weeks ago. Would she ever recover? Was that even a possibility? What was she supposed to do with herself now? What was the point of this life? When would it all finally end?

She slowed as she reached the place she had not visited in so many weeks. Her soft curls swayed in the breeze. A few loose curls, whom had wriggled their way from her mass of hair, fluttered across her face tickling her nose.

Her once steady breath quickened its pace, still calm, but instead now it was holding back emotion. Like a dam holds back the water which swelled with a flood.

In front of her was the grand heart of the garden. The large fountain rested in the middle in all its gorgeous glory. Carved with careful hands once long ago. The water was frozen over now. Snow covered the beautiful marble walkway which normally sparkled in the sunlight. The lovely flowers of spring had died with the cold. This place was still gorgeous. Even with the dead flowers, and so many of its ornaments covered in snow and ice.

Her breath caught as her eyes fell upon something she had not anticipated finding. A rose lay on the wall of the frozen fountain. She recognized it without having to pull on her memory. It was the last rose. His last rose.

The night before he left, they had wished nothing but to be together. They had been here. Together hoping against hope that dawn would never come, and that time would cease to go on.

"Promise me you won't leave me..."

"Acrista, you know how I wish I didn't have to. Dear, it's not my choice. And if I'd had a choice id have chosen to stay by your side for the rest of my life!"

"But why can we not just be married?!" she called out with despair, tears threatening to spill over her eyelashes and onto her soft and perfect skin.

"Please Acrista, you know very well why. I promise you now," as he said this, he kneeled down onto his left knee and took her hand, gently but firmly. "The moment I return my dear, we will be married and will never part again. I swear this to you, with all my heart and the very last drop of my being."

"Do you promise?" she said, her lips attempting to smile.

"I promise."

At this last promise, she melted into him. They clung desperately to each other, giving into their tears, as if doing so would stop the future from arriving. But inevitably it would.

And it did....