Embracing Sorrow

          Harold sat on a chair next to his attic window, looking outside at the gathering dusk. The wind twisted the clouds into concentric circles, breathing life into the trees, the grass, and the wild daisies, which seemed to smile with radiant life. At first, Harold felt exuberant, satisfied, and proud of his newest song. Indeed, it was the only song that Miles had approved of. “Why, I should be pounding on Miles’ bodhran and dancing a jig,” Harold said.

            The sky, shifting from blue to purple, seemed to call to Harold. As darkness fell, it gathered around his shoulders like a wrinkled wet sheet. The clouds dispersed, and the daisies, unwilling to go to sleep, jumped up into the night sky, becoming the stars, which looked like dots on the wrinkles, and folded in and out of Harold’s peripheral vision; Harold sighed, longing to reach out and grasp one of those droplets of light and clasp them in his hand, a talisman, a good luck charm, a guiding beacon to keep him safe and warm.

            “Lilith,” he whispered. “I miss you so. I miss your smile, your laughing eyes, and the scent of lavender that followed you like a shadow. I miss your warmth, your sharp wit, and morning love.”

            Harold turned the gold ring on his finger, relishing the hard metal encrusted with tiny diamonds. “We said until death do us part,” Harold said. “So what comes after? I want you, now. I need you, now. I would kneel before you, my angel; I want to hold you in my arms forever.”

            The skeleton on the bed seemed to call to Harold; Harold stood, and bid adieu to the stars that colored the sky like the diamonds in his ring. “Oh, sweet sorrow,” Harold said. “Sad bones chained forever to a metal frame, all alone and afraid. Does the anger still burn? Does the anger chain me forever to this bed?”

            Harold’s body faded as it slipped into the embrace of cold white bones. His blue eyes shifted to crimson, to purple, and then, disappeared completely.