Long Gone

Yesterday was ten years already, and it isn't any less agonizing. I always thought he'd come back. That's what people did. They got sick, they went to a doctor, got better and came back. They were supposed to come back.

This one time, being gravely unwell, it was effort to even sit up. But he had promised me ice-cream from a stall at the end of the lane, and so we went. I don't remember what ice-cream it was, or why it was so important that day, but I do remember that it took us more than an hour to get there when it should have been just five minutes away. It hits me now how he had staggered all the way. Beyond that, our walk to the stall was slackened by every person passing. Pleasantries were shared and you could tell they meant well.

The last days he recognized no one. He had no sense of anything around him or even of himself. But there were moments. Elusive ones, but there nonetheless. And in those few moments, those trices, you could see. You could see him in sync with everything. With himself, with us, everything. Like he had always been.

At the brink of a winter, the Cimmerian shade questioned

Why no one lived, only ceased to exist?