We don’t live in Aitken anymore. We’re together, living in an old cottage with a
thatched roof in the green valley I dig up while she cures. At weekends we walk
through fields and lie in tall grass and talk all afternoon. In summer we go abroad
and look at ancient stones. She listens carefully and intently as I tell her their
stories. Our life is perfect, peaceful, serene. We rarely argue. We are 50:50, best
friends. Every beautiful cliché. All was good, all was great. Until the clouds came.
They came in summer, an unprecedented move. I knew something was wrong,
could see it in her eyes. I feared the worst. I got the worst. The cancer came,
developed and took her quickly and, I think, painlessly. She was heartbreakingly
brave, wasting away to nothing before my eyes.
Nothing could be the same again. The thatch came out, the valley went brown, the
cold foreign stones mocked me, knowing I had no one to tell their tale. I stumbled
through life without her. My digging meant nothing if I couldn’t show her and tell.
I quickly degenerated: drunk too much, slept on her grave. I wanted her back so
badly I began to think she was really dead and started to cry. Other passengers
looked at me, concerned. I told them I’d taken a daydream too far. They looked
at me as if I were mad. I switched on my stereo, determined not to go back to the
dream.
thatched roof in the green valley I dig up while she cures. At weekends we walk
through fields and lie in tall grass and talk all afternoon. In summer we go abroad
and look at ancient stones. She listens carefully and intently as I tell her their
stories. Our life is perfect, peaceful, serene. We rarely argue. We are 50:50, best
friends. Every beautiful cliché. All was good, all was great. Until the clouds came.
They came in summer, an unprecedented move. I knew something was wrong,
could see it in her eyes. I feared the worst. I got the worst. The cancer came,
developed and took her quickly and, I think, painlessly. She was heartbreakingly
brave, wasting away to nothing before my eyes.
Nothing could be the same again. The thatch came out, the valley went brown, the
cold foreign stones mocked me, knowing I had no one to tell their tale. I stumbled
through life without her. My digging meant nothing if I couldn’t show her and tell.
I quickly degenerated: drunk too much, slept on her grave. I wanted her back so
badly I began to think she was really dead and started to cry. Other passengers
looked at me, concerned. I told them I’d taken a daydream too far. They looked
at me as if I were mad. I switched on my stereo, determined not to go back to the
dream.
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