> i swear i'll never leave again - keshi
WE HAD BEEN kneeling beside the mess of bones and blood and guts on the road for the past few minutes, in a pregnant sort of silence.
"Hold on," They finally spoke, pulling their long grey winter jacket off their shoulders, and wrapped the—what we guessed was a deer, but it was so run over that it was only all shattered bones and gory splatters—in the soft fleece and cradled it carefully in their arms.
"Do you think it hurts?" They questioned so softly, I was unsure if they were speaking to the autumn wind, the dead deer, or to me.
"Death?" I pondered aloud, raising my brow, waiting for their clarification. "Or being hit by a car?"
"Well," They chuckled, as they looked into my eyes, like cream and black coffee that never stops dancing. "To end."
"Is the end when you're forgotten; or when your physical body ceases to exist?"
They smiled in reply, their gaze wandering off to the end of the road.
"Let's lay him down to rest first."
With granite and white strips being eaten by our footsteps, we walked in the midst of our comfortable companionship and the occasional car driving past, the moon and sun peaking over the cloud-dappled sky.
We arrived to the sad remains of a graveyard in the middle of wild meadows, the memorials and statues reduced to unrecognisable shapes of rock. Unconsciously, my fingers grazed the fragmented wings of a formation in the vague appearance of an angel. Cold fingers touched me through my scarf, tentative and familiar and choking.
"Help find me some nice sticks or stones." Their voice shook me out of my nostalgia and into action.
By the time I came back with an array of 'pretty sticks and stones', they had already dug a hole and laid the broken thing into the earth.
"To be honest," They confessed, as they slowly swept the soil into the makeshift grave with their dirty hands, their eyes all melancholic, as if they were witnessing a tragedy that they could do nothing about. "I'm deathly afraid."
"I'm afraid of being forgotten, of being lost in the sea of time without a mention or memory of my name, of being less than a shadow."
"The only imprint I have left on this place is in the minds of people who will perish even faster than a butterfly's flutter. Once they are gone, I will be, too."
Their brown fingernails traced the mound restlessly, as they finally met my eyes, a smile sadder than their others inching up their features.
I did not speak as I sat beside them, slowly arranging the stones around the small grave and placed a sturdy stick in the middle.
Feeling ready, I turned to them with a comforting smile of my own.
"Do not worry," I said, as dried leaves whirled gently around us. "I am perpetual and I will remember you."
"You promise?" Their eyes shone with stars at the peak of spring—sweet hope and reassurance.
I nodded, not understanding the breathless pain spreading past my lungs.
" I promise. "
