The love scene:
Many years have passed, in the normal way years do, more or less. I am an old lady now. As an old lady, I sit quietly alone, as I have throughout my life. To tell you where, and when, and what I was thinking all seems to matter very little any more. It is on this day, this day not unlike any other, amid the many signs that I have searched for, beyond the many sunrises I have driven through, interrupting thoughts, my usual, you see I have not changed that much at all. I am thinking how I will not miss this place, this world, no more than I have missed any other…
She comes in without a word. Into my life, what very little has managed to remain of it; I would have thought there to be no room left for another soul. But there she is, beautiful, and I smile. I smile for the first time in a very long time, who knows how long exactly, and time, it does not matter any more. It has passed, that is all I know, it has come and gone…yet here she is, here is what I have longed for all this time, all these days of searching, they have lead me here.
The words come fast and easy, words that were locked up for so long, what was always meant to be said free and unleashed at last. All the hidden truths. The words tell our stories effortlessly, rapidly coming full circle, as it all does in the end. So much we have done, yet so much left to do that we will not… So many minutes and mishaps and memories that will never be made, that can only be looked back upon now through the imagination of a fate less cruel.
We stand and she takes my hand. We walk together into the nothingness, there is no one any more, only her and I, and we walk on for a few steps or maybe miles, I will never be sure. They say it is not the destination it’s the journey, but this is my destination, healing all pains of my life long journey, and it is ending. I feel it ending as it has begun.
We walk on through the birth of trees and the change of seasons, we are one, reunited in the daydream I had tried to enter so many times. It is her! She is what I had tried to wake up to all those moments of almost, it is she who was held from me, as I was forced to live this universe alone… It is the scene on the back of my eyelids, but outfacing now, looking out at the world instead of into it, and the beauty is blinding, so blinding that what I see now is only new, and as the sun sets, all is dark. And beautiful.
As we lie down in the grass, beneath some mother tree, I know I will spend the rest of my life with her, for the rest of my moments I will be happy. The peace I have searched for, the love that has evaded me, in my ending day on earth I have found the one to spend those final moments with. It does not matter the time we have. Our love could not be greater had it spanned a thousand years.
She is still holding my hand, tighter now, as the blackness fades to gray. The world dips in and out of focus as we shift into our new dimension. No words are needed now. The last thing I sense of the earth, and of this body that held me there, is the beating of our hearts, beating as one in perfect rhythm, slowing now together like a song coming to an end. No final grand farewell, but perhaps no dissolution either. As we escape together into the next realm, all I feel is happiness, knowing that death will not be what my life was.
All the pain, all the tears, all the desperation and despair that plagued me as I walked is worth it now as I lie beside her, no longer alone, no longer debating, no longer scared. I leave this life on the very best day that it contained, and I leave in the company of that I have not known, love…
