Like letters carved upon an oak, his truth was etched upon his heart. The truth of her, she with whom his heart was inscribed, she to whom his heart had been wholly given. The love of his life.
That she fell away from him like leaves from the oak did not alter this truth in the slightest. The imprint only deepened, and when--unlike the oak whose leaves return in spring--she did not return, his heart hardened like the oak itself, save for this imprint, this truth, which cut deeper with each passing day.
He thought of her ceaselessly, unflinchingly prepared to welcome her back with an open heart and open arms but she did not come, and the silence bled out before him like an endless, empty road. He wrote to her, sang for her, bled for her and it was truth but each word rang out into the darkness, carried away on the wings of silence, like the winds which made the oak tremble on frigid nights.
In the silence he imagined what her words might be. Things are better this way, she'd surely say. You are better off without me. I turn from you, and answer only in silence so that you may forget me, so that you may move on and heal.
"And if that is the narrative of which you've convinced yourself, and which brings you some measure of peace," whispered the man to no one, "then I am glad.
It is, of course, but fiction."
His words floated away into the darkness, and the cold winds swept over him and he trembled like the oak, but like the oak he stood, trembling but deeply-rooted.
-end-
"What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us?" Queen
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