One night when the moon was full and the sky was clear and filled with stars we sat in my living room. A single candle burned on a table, illuminating a painting. A mountainous landscape with lush trees and heavenly white rolling clouds passing along a light blue sky with a pale yellow sun. Amidst the trees sat a couple picnicking in a meadow, anyone that looked close enough could see the couple consisted of two young men. Johan liked that painting; he kept wondering why the painter had painted two young men instead of a man and a woman. Even if the painter did lust after men, why take the risk? I did not know. I had purchased that work of art because I liked it. The shopkeeper who had sold it to me had not even noticed this small detail. Aside from the candle the room was illuminated by the moonlight that poured in through the windows. My skin was still warm from the corporeal passion we expressed earlier. It had not been the long sweet motions but a quick race to the wave of ecstasy that lay on the end of it. I sat on the couch; Johan rested with his head in my lap lying curdled up next to me. Johan had to go to his family's estate for the summer. I had actually looked forward to spending the summer with him, but alas that could not be.
I spend the summer dreaming of him, about his brown hair and eyes, about his slender form, the touch and scent of his skin. I was rejoiced when the first signs of autumn came. I had expected Johan to come to me. Three nights of waiting was enough, I went to his rooms myself, not being able to bear is absence any longer. Somebody else lived there now, an elderly lady who had moved in a mere week ago. I made a polite chat with he. She didn't know much, only that the rooms had been for rent for four days before she moved in. I decided to pay the family estate a visit, to find out where Johan was.
Travelling to the estate by coach proved to be both fast and easy. When I arrived there the house was in mourning. Fear began to gnaw at me when I did not find Johan by sneaking past windows and listening through cracks. I went down to the family crypt that lay in the garden. I was determined to prove my fears unjustified. But no, the newest of the tombs had the name of my lover written on it. The world tumbled. It was as if the ground beneath my feet broke away and I was on the brink of falling. As if I was in a dark tunnel and a train was racing towards me, the realisation hit me like such a train hit me. An impotent desire to change things rose in me like a violent storm. But I could not change things; there was no way. Where it that I could rend my bleeding heart from my chest and place it in his chest so that blood might pump through his veins again then I would have. But no such feat was possible. My vision blurred, my brain felt hot inside my skull and a chill crept through my veins so that my blood felt like a silent river of ice. If there was ever a time that I would have wanted to die it was right then and there. Then there was the nothingness of silence, the void at the bottom of the pit of despair. I left that crypt, that place of death and sorrow. I returned to Vienna though I remember nothing of the journey home.
My rooms where so empty now. My pretty furniture gathered dust and soon my living room looked like it was haunted. I did not care, my heart was broken and lay bleeding in my chest and it felt heavy like it where made of lead.
Times of weeping passed and times of uncontrolled rage came when I would fling around objects that where in my reach. At the end of that the cycle would begin anew. I fed sporadically and like an animal. I did not fulfil dark desires; I took what sustenance I needed. I never experienced loneliness in such a way. Before Johan came into my life I had been content with being on my own. I had loved my share of mortals but nothing deep or lasting.
Time passes so quickly when you are not aware of it. Time just becomes a force of nature, slow like a river of thick mud, slow and unstoppable. So it went by unnoticed, and when I awoke from my solitude that had numbed my mind, seasons had passed and the wheel of years had turned.
Three years had passed when I returned to the centre of my sorrow, the family estate. My coach travelled fast again through the night. When I approached the family crypt I saw a light burning inside. I guessed it was merely one candle judging by the amount of light. I walked over to the wrought-iron gate. I heard one person praying or at least whispering. It was the voice of a young man. I could not hear his words. I decided to leave.
I did not return to Vienna but rented a room in a nearby inn. The nights of the countryside where different from the nights of fair Vienna. The rural landscape granted me a new way to express my sadness. I walked through the fields and forests. My sorrow was mixed with wonder as I looked up at the stars and moon. As I wept the clouds wept with me as if the heavenly host poured down their tears upon the earth. Was Johan up there, did he weep because he had left me behind? Was he gone, had he embraced oblivion? Perhaps he was somewhere, someplace I could not understand someplace where he could see this mortal realm? I did not have the answers and so I could only weep. Neither shouting at the heavens nor demanding that Johan would show himself gave me any satisfaction. There was nothing except the land around me, the skies above me, the cold stars, and the silent moon.
At the inn no questions where asked. I took long walks in the evenings, spend some time in my room, and dozed in the shadows of the bar in the afternoon. Though I was still depressed I enjoyed my stay there because of its simplicity. I did eat and drink a little, unlike some of my kind I can stomach mortal food and drink, though not much especially if its it too fat or too much. Using these methods I didn?t give the game away and I was left alone in peace.
I did not count the days and nights but I think a week passed before I dared to venture back to the estate. The night-sky was shrouded with clouds, dark brooding clouds. No wind stirred the grass or branches. Far away and owl hooted. It was as if the night was filled with dread and gloom. I carried my sorrow with me like a heavy burden. Yet there was hope, I hoped that I could put down my burden at the macabre altar that was my lover?s grave. This time the house was near empty, I did not wonder where Johan?s family had gone, I just entered the crypt and kneeled before the grim plaque that read his name, bowed my head and thought of him. Then from some place I could not pinpoint due to the echoes of the crypt I heard music, a piano. It sounded like it was far away and without warning it was gone. After saying my last farewell to my lost love I departed. A strange feeling of peace cam over me and the pain of sorrow diminished a little. The coach took me back to Vienna where it was time to clean my house.