Lillian’s ashes lie in an urn on a fireplace mantel. The urn is vividly decorated, white doves upon a delph blue background, their wings stretching outward towards the Heavens, floating up, up, up. No dust ever collects there, no dark shadow ever falls upon Lillian’s urn. During the day, the sunlight cascades in through a large bay window and settles its light upon the vase. No dark spirits make their home here, as if an angel stands vigil upon the mantel, silently mourning and protecting the memory of an innocent child.
Days come and pass, as fast as any old man claims they do. The lofty Victorian columns crumble stoically to the ground, heroes lost in the battle of time. The glass windows shatter and break, vandals spray their graffiti throughout the house. Still Lillian sits, perfectly lit, a capsule of time. The walls crumble around the fireplace and the old Victorian foundation falls, the hands that built it so long ago now passed on.
Time bared its teeth and nature crept in, meticulous and calculating, quietly returning the foundation to its natural state. But still Lillian’s ashes sit, the doves still fly, and sun still bears its light upon that hallowed space. A shell of its former self, the land is now weeds and overgrowth, wildly growing out into the streets, disguising Lillian’s resting place. Now the bay window falls to the ground, brown, moldy, and splintered. It’s finally time. The angel, glowing in a blinding and pure light, takes the hand of a small child and leads her away. Up, up, up they float, past blue skies and white clouds.
The urn finally crumbles, fragmenting into a hundred blue pieces, spreading its ash upon the ground. Out of that ash forms three white doves, forming out of the ash of the urn and the clay of the Earth. They flap their wings and take off, fluttering around the trees and perching here and there. Up, up, up they go too, blinking out in a bright blue ocean and a shining yellow Sun.
