Should Be Raining

From Wrichacir

“In retrospect, love is not at all like a summer’s day.”
It was all wrong. It was nothing like he’d planned. The air was thick and wet, clinging to his clothes and resting in his lungs. It took his voice and turned a shout into a weary whisper.

“It does not shine, it does not burn. It is not a thing of wild passion, or wild abandon.” He closed his eyes. He gripped his hands together, tight, to feel like he was hanging on. He had to keep hanging on, or he would fall off of the earth, into the endless gray above him. He took a breath, and forced the words to speak. He had to say it. He’d sworn he’d say it.

“Love…love, to me, is like an autumn dusk. The sun starts high and falls so slowly. It bends time around it, while we watch, while we are entranced. Around and within us, the fields give up their harvest. As we lose, we gain so much…” The family had stood in silence. The wife had wept with a stoic grace. Children, one old enough to know, one too young to understand, the children both watched with terrible eyes. And he stood, his turn to speak. Hours, days, and weeks passed. He hadn’t spoken. It had only been an hour, but with whispered words and gentle touched, they’d left. All but the man, and the wife, and the children, one old enough to know, one too young to understand. But he had to speak. He’d sworn that he would speak.

“Dusk, despite its beauty, turns to darkness. But the dark is not something to fear. Love clings to us, like a shadow, and warms us from the early winter chill. In the dark, we are held. In the dark, we speak in honest whispers. In the dark, we are ourselves, without appearances or watching eyes. In those darkened places, love finds our skins and blesses us beneath the stars. Until…”

A tear crept down his eye, desperate to fall, held in long enough. The man, the friend, the best man, the drinking buddy, he laid a rose upon the grave of Marcus West. The blushing petals brushed the stone like lips, and the man’s heart caught and seized. He had to finish. He’d sworn he would finish. “Until the morning comes, and with it, winter. Then, the harvest must sustain us until the summer comes, and with it, heat and passion…and perhaps an autumn’s dusk. Love is found in falling leaves, in secret places.”

The man turned, looked at the wife. Her eyes were hollow, heavy, and they stung him to the core. He tried to say that he was sorry. Instead, he left. He’d promised. And now he was done.