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Shreder -> Frozen Tears (2/19/2010 1:49:48)
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Frozen Tears
I stepped out, not bothering to shut the door behind me. Immediately I was assaulted by the freezing wind, that numbed and stung as if it carried a thousand tiny ice crystals that it now hurled against my face lie daggers. The tears that had been trickling from my eyes now froze into lines of ice, and I shivered as I drew my rough cloak about me in a futile effort to stay warm.
Amidst the fast-falling snow I set out walking. I knew not where I went, nor was it important. My body shivered uncontrollably, and as I walked I knew I could not last long in this storm. Not that it mattered. Where was I to go anyway? What did I have left to connect me to this world?
A memory flashed in my mind.
I saw you leaning over a wooden bucket, retching as if trying to expel all the contents of your stomach.
I rushed over, with all the concern of a young husband. “Are you okay, dear?”
“I’m…fine,” you said, straightening up and smiling weakly. “I...have something important to tell you.”
“What, are you sick?”
“No, I…" you hesitated for a moment, "I think I'm with child."
“But that’s wonderful!” I exclaimed, drawing you into a tight embrace.
How long ago that all seemed.
I still remember your face, contorted as you lay on that bed, panting. I still hear your cries of pain, and the guilt of having been unable to do anything pains me still. You died in childbirth, and our child followed soon after. What did I have to live for now, when all I loved in life had been torn from my helpless grasp?
I stumbled on, the cold seeping into me seeming to form a layer of ice around the shattered fragments of my heart. The wind was so heavy with snow I could scarcely see, but my skin was now so numb that I could no longer feel its chill bite.
My brain was shutting down, my body wanted nothing more than to lie down, to give in. At last I stumbled and fell, face-first into a pristine snowdrift. Perhaps it was just the delusions of a dying man, but as I closed my eyes and felt consciousness slip away I thought I heard your voice upon the wind.
C&C
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