Taking The Long Way Home

Part 16 (part 2)

16.2 Taking the long way home.

She should have known it would come to this honestly. It was all simply too good to be true. As if the doctors didn't warn her, she was as deaf and blind as a moldy tree stump, gullible in its roots to how cruel this world can really be. In her defense, she argues that it was only human nature to hope and expect the 'better' of things. May it be against the laws of the universe or the writings of god himself. Although we were taught time and time again that life and its journey were all predestined in a way, mankind never really did believed in that wholeheartedly. We were blessed and cursed to only know the present, remember the past and wonder the future. Thus we believe in fantasies and dreams...and the careless word of hope.

In the middle of their taxi ride home, her wife made a sudden request if they could instead walk the rest of the way, through this park that leads straight home. For old time's sake, her wife said. A tradition they used to do when they first moved in to the area. Winter was at its heights and as snow was falling gracefully out the window, it would be wise to refuse such a random impulse. But she didn't know what it was that made her say 'yes' almost immediately and she was also confused at her own self for stopping the cab and paying the man, pulling the door so her wife could get off. It was all automatic in a way, involuntary to an extent. It was one of those rare times in her life that her heart was leading her body entirely with administrative power, without reason or logic.

 The freshly fallen snow crunched below their laboured steps as they made their way into the park, disappearing into its depths soon after as the snowfall engulfed them in a powdery canvas. The trees were all dead, not a single leaf in sight. And even the pathway was nearly unrecognisable from the rest of the grounds due to accumulating snow. But it was all deathifying-ly beautiful, with everything temporally dead around them it was as if time did not exist at all in the park. The silence of their surrounding and the chilliness of the air made it so as if they were the only human beings on the planet. On a sunny day in the summer, one would be able to see from end to end of the park, as it wasn't that large but it did have elevations scattered about. But in winter snowfall, the edge of the park was a blurry vision and the city buildings surrounding it were nowhere to be seen.

Trudging through the snow, they walked hand in hand. Turning to look at each other's faces from time to time. They leave a trail of footsteps behind them, some deep and some shallow in the snow. In which distance between their previous step to the next grew closer and closer as the minutes count. They were walking slower and slower, until their pace became a bit scattered and it turned into a pair of steady steps in shallow snow and a pair of disorganized dragging marks in the dirt. She had to prop up her wife who was then dragging her own feet between short breaths and shaking knees. Her wife had insisted that they go on and so she did, with all her might, hugging the frail woman by the arms and waist, trying to displace the weight onto her body as much as she could. She was confident that tears were running down her face at a steady pace, as they froze into tiny icicles that break off at her chin. "We must go on." She heard her wife say. The whistling sound of the wind could no longer mask the whining pant of the woman beside her whose lungs were no longer inflating as they should. The whine and whimper of her wife's breath grew louder and longer. And alas...her wife fell to the ground, into her arms.

She cradled her tight, on her knees as she sat in the snow on the side of the path. Holding her as close as she could to her chest, an action that requires little effort as she notes her wife's shrunken build. The weak woman was resting on her lap, whimpering her every breath as her chest fluctuated up and down rapidly like raging waves in an open sea. She called her name but the woman was unresponsive, her pupils darting around finding nothing. Her wife couldn't see her, she concluded. Nor could she hear the desperate calls of her name. She caressed the side of her wife's face, removing the bits of snow that fell upon her cheeks, pushing her hair away, making sure her wife knew that she was involved in this journey. And suddenly the rapid breaths went calm and the lost pupils became focused. Her wife looked into her eyes and she did the same. They locked sight of each other, conveying various words through a force of telepathy that only they knew how. She was still stroking the woman's face, as gently as she could. Her eyes were waterfalls of endless tears that were quietly trailing down her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her throat was dry and her nose was clogged but she summoned the last bit of strength in her to utter a few words with a sad smile.

"If you want to go... You can go..." she said. "I love you. I love you, Mai. It's okay... You can go..." she said.

The shaking pupils went still and the eyelids relaxed. The laboured breathing discontinued and the chest deflated for the last time. Her wife's eyes closed and so did hers, in tears and in agony. She hugs the limp body and buries her head in its dissipating warmth. Soft, muffled wails of pain escaped her as she wept with outmost intensity. Her trembling body, shivering to the bone as the weight of her loss and the coldness of the weather battered her soul. She would have to call an ambulance, a small voice of reason in her said.

The snow stopped falling and the sky cleared slightly. Revealing the distance to be much nearer. They were almost home. The edge of the park was less than fifty meters away. 'Taking the long way home' as her wife would call it.

Her wife was already home.

And she will be too.

When the time is right.

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