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I held his hand tenderly as he slept, feeling the pulsating rhythm of his heartbeat, fiercely pressing against my palm as though reassuring me that he was still there. As the cold, winter snow fell down upon his head, making beautiful patterns in his blonde hair, I read his future. I read his future in the bleak mid-winter, and his future was bleak.

He had smiled at me before he had faded, telling me that he was alright and that he would only close his eyes for a moment. A moment had been all it had taken, and now he was beyond reach. So far away was he that I swore I could already see him within the stars. Swore I could already feel his breath on the back of my neck, the way they did in the movies, but I couldn’t, because he was right here, resting with me.

The wind rustled in the trees, making a distinct whistling sound, calling, sirens beckoning him to death, but he listened to me. He heard my voice from wherever his soul lingered, and he stayed with me. He stayed where my voice held him firm, grasped him for dear life, here on this woodland road, so far away. So, so far away where nobody would ever find us.

The rust coloured snow formed a blanket beneath him, and it looked almost comforting for a moment, until I remembered what had coloured it’s pure whiteness. Snow is a blank canvass, and this darling boy had coloured it with his own blood, and now here he lay, drowning within it. Clinging by a tiny thread which withered in the wind. Once that thread gave way to the biting breeze, he would be lost forever, billowing around me like a cloud, sheltering me from the wind from his Heavenly destination. He would find comfort there.

Time passes on slowly when you are holding the last seconds of an angel’s life in your hands. I cannot lose my grasp on him, because I need him with me for just a few moments longer. Just a few, to at least give them a chance to find us. It is doubtful that they will. I gave up so long ago. I silently said goodbye to him the moment the glass speared his beautiful skin and started the flow of his mortality, painting his picture where he lay almost as though it were a crime to let him die. It was a crime. He was a man with so much to give. So much to offer.

The wind had been so cruel. It had been the form of Satan as it had blown through our cabin, the branch of the tree shattering the tiny windows and dragging us from our beds. It had been evil as it had forced us apart, the wetness of the floor taking his footing and causing him to fall down those stairs…and onto the shattered glass. Fate had been abysmal when it had drove the shard, like a stake, deep into his chest as he fell. Fate had been ultimate when it had made the snow stick, and the blizzard form, closing down the roads so the only means of rescue came from the air, where visibility was next to nothing. God had been so blind when he had chosen to take my darling brother out of this world before his time. So cruel he had been to allow him to stagger helplessly into the road only to find no salvation. Hope shattered, as those fatal shards of glass had been.

I kiss his forehead as his bright eyes fly open. Relief in his face as he sees that I have not left him. I would never leave him, yet I sense that he is about to leave me. I do not blame him. I cannot hate him, for he has suffered enough. He has suffered the pain and the torment of hope shattered and illusions broken, and he deserves to be free. The life force which has drained from him is sucking him dry, taking his blood and bleeding it from his bones, into the ground. The burial process has begun even before he has died. Nature can be so heartless.

Sensing his doubt and his reservations, I quietly comfort him. I know that he is silently seeking my blessing. He does not want to leave me alone, but I know that he must go. I cannot be selfish. I cannot hold on to him forever. He closes his eyes for the last time, and instantly I am desperate to see them again, but this time, shaking has no effect. I swear that I can see his spirit vacating his body, his warmth radiating into the air and up towards the Heavens. He knows where to go. He’s been there before, yet destiny dragged him back all those years ago. Five year olds with missions to accomplish are not accepted into the world of God.

I swear that he whispers in the cruel wind even so quickly after his death. I swear that he tells me to keep myself safe. I swear that my best friend and my brother has immediately taken on the role of my guardian, up there in his new home…

And I swear that I can hear the helicopter, coming only moments too late.

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