Sunday, January 25, 2009

"Hi, my name is Kathryn."

I find myself sitting on a stone bench alongside a gravel path in a park. I'm under the shade of a huge maple tree. It's cold in the shade so cold that it's almost unrealistic. The grass surrounding the bench is unusually long. It's almost as if someone has forgotten to cut it in years. The sun makes a jagged yet accurate line across the brown colored gravel path. There are no sounds except the sounds of the golden maple leaves hitting the very long grass other than that, it's completely silent. No birds singing, no cars running, nothing else in this park except me. Sitting on the stone bench. 


I notice I'm dressed for an occasion of some sort. It's not formal but it's not casual either. I'm wearing a light blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and khaki dress pants with brown shoes. I sit there examining my surroundings. My concentration is broken by a young lady in a black dress walking down the gravel path. I've seen her before. She has light red, curly hair and she looks absolutely beautiful. She is so happy. Her smile is so perfect it's like an artist took his whole life to paint it that perfect. I just sit there and appreciate how beautiful she really is. She hasn't looked at my once. She hasn't even noticed my presence. Then I stand up and walk out of the shade of the tree and into the middle of the path where I meet her.


When she sees me her perfect smile runs from her face like grains of sand in the wind. I'm still in awe of her beauty. Then I slip out of it and proceed to greet her. "Hi there beautiful, how are you?" She doesn't say anything. The wind starts to pick up, slowly. Her eyes start to water like she's on the verge of crying. Everything seems to slow to almost a crawl. I move closer to her and gently put my hand on her cheek and kiss her other. The leaves are swirling around us. Just us. It's like we are attracting them some how. There are so many. It's like we are in golden wind storm. My eyes explore the jaw-dropping environment that just formed around us and I notice everything is frozen for just a moment except me and her. She mouths something to me but I can't hear it, I can't make out what it was. And before I could ask her to repeat herself,time catches up to us and the massive amount of leaves that were swirling above us fall and obstruct my vision. I shout her name over and over again but she doesn't respond. I can't find her. I would give anything to find her. I fall to my knees with the last of golden maple leaves gently falling down in rhythm with my tears.