Forever Love Sick

Fade to Grey

    The air is filled with laughter as we approach, close together but not hand in hand. Kids run around springing with them a rainbow of balloons. A rainbow with the rain. Even the brick buildings seem to bask in the glow of the sun and summer breeze.

    The streets are lined with people waiting in anticipation of the floats. These floats are not like last years, they are moving gardens with emerald stem and ruby red roses. The crowd cheers as they dance to the beat of the drums. Beside me, I hear silence. Despite it, I basked in the sugar of the summer, in the celebration. Only my moves won't stop me from feeling the glacial breeze that stills me.

     The cheers turn into siren like shrieks as the cloud overthrow the sun. My ears pop, forcing the music out of my mind. Balloons sink to the ground like they are falling asleep. I look away from the shrieking people to Miles who continues to be silent and not looking at me. He does not speak to me even I reach for his hand. And it scratches mine like sandpaper. When he looks at me, his skin turned is almost as gray as his eyes. I touch his arm, leaving a streak of purple that drips off like water.

     I look at my own hands causing me to catch sight of the pinks, purples, and greens pool at my feet like rain. I turn to see the colors bleeding out of the floats, the flowers, the tree, and the people. Out of everything. Colors rushing like rivers into the drain. The people have stopped shrieking now. Instead they stood in silence facing the roads.

     I turn to Miles. For help. For reassure. For a plan. Yet he's not there. I walk through the crowd of cold bodies. The colors envelope my feet in their depth. Surprisingly, they feel warm like tears. I spot him across the street standing by himself.

    He looks blankly at me as his grey drips to the floor. The grey fills the person next to him like they are an empty cup. It spreads slowly until they all look like him, gray. New music starts to play. Deep notes push their way through the air. They don't react. They do however, turn their heads at once to the sounds of footsteps.

     Seven men dressed in black come down the street, struggling to carry a large wooden box on their shoulders. Miles takes a step away from them. Then they stop. With his head hung, he walks over to the casket, taking his position and evening out the sides. Once they continued, their seldom faces don't look into the crowd again, only ahead.

     The music feels so much heavier that my shoulders struggle to stay up. The men move slowly as if they are deliberating every move. They all do.

     I'm on the ground wheezing as the make their way to the end of the street. My hands are wrist deep in colors so mixed together I can't tell them apart and now all I see is grey too.