A Fleeting Memory

As I sat watching that cold, familiar road to nowhere with a flask in hand, I thought back to a time I held close to my heart. I was young, then, naive and full of passion. A painter by trade, I was inspired by the green leaves just turning their yellows, oranges and reds.

She was my inspiration. My love. I think back to how I looked at her, standing opposite of me in the cool autumn breeze. Dressed in amber and emerald. Her beauty reflected in the turning and fallen leaves of oak. Her deep sapphire eyes… The trickling streams below. She wore nature, as it wore her.

Her and I, frozen in time, like a photograph. Looking longingly at each other, from having been away from one another for so long. She smiled, both hands behind her back and leaning in coyly… Tempting me to come to her. “You’re late…” She said. I rolled up my coat sleeve and spied my wristwatch. “I thought you’d be down here. Three o’clock, on the dot, I suppose?” “You’re starting to catch on…” She said as she started up the meandering road.

I caught up to her, and gestured for her to link her arm into mine. She curled up to me, leaning her head on my shoulder as we continued down the path. I smiled a wholesome smile like one I had never experienced before this… Or, after.

She had been my fall, in all senses of the word. As I retired my reverie, I laid my head upon bundled up newspaper, listening to the quiet sounds of both gentle wind and water. My heart had begun beating abnormally these past several months. I was weary, this I knew. I awaited rest upon my wooden bed, dedicated to her once long ago. My home, caught between a time so significant to me, and one that had no meaning.

Slipping into a deep sleep, a trickling stream ran down an oaken face.
A single memory kept alive for 75 years, gone.
Three o’clock…
On the dot.