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He
sat next to his window, watching the lights on the horizon
shimmer. The heat might have accounted for the blurring in the
distance. The skyline rarely showed clearly from here, twenty
miles out, but tonight, the lights flashed and wavered.
He used to see the city as a beacon of hope. Here, his life
had changed. Here, he'd finally been able to become a person,
to live a life, to free himself from the depression that used
to overwhelm him.
Here, he'd met Her.
She'd changed him. Taught him how to smile. To laugh. To see
the beauty of the world, beauty that had been destroyed when
his parents died. To believe in everything.
It was belief that had killed his parents. A bomb, protesting
or proclaiming some belief or other, took their lives, along
with those of twelve other people. Nobody said being a
diplomatic child was easy. He'd just believed it would be.
But She had changed that. Years later, She'd shown him the
beauty of life. That beliefs didn't always end in pain.
Sometimes, faith was rewarded. He'd accepted God again. And
he'd accepted Her.
But tonight, he could not cling to blind faith. Everything he
believed in had hurt him. Again.
"I'll be OK,"
She had said. And he'd believed it.
He should have gone with Her. He knew that. She was his to
protect, to shelter. He loved Her, wanted to take care of Her.
He'd believed in them. They made promises and kept them. But
this one wouldn't be kept.
"Will you marry me?"
"Of course."
That wouldn't happen, now. Not since the Stranger called. He
remembered the voice: a friend of his father's. They'd worked
together once. When they were both alive. But now he was a
stranger, a visitor from another place, a deity in the wrong
house of worship.
"I'm sorry."
Such silly, inane words. What did they mean? Absolutely shit,
that's what they meant. A paltry attempt to right things that
would never cease to be wrong. He'd once believed that
language, communication could express everything.
"She was just in the wrong place..."
Had he been there, he could have saved Her. He was sure of it.
It was his job to protect Her. He'd believed that he could
keep Her safe from everything. And now he'd failed. Yet
another misplaced belief.
"There was very little pain."
Maybe not for Her, but his heart was slashed in two, as
effectively as if the knife-thrust had gone through his chest
instead of Hers. Except that it had taken Her life, while he
would keep on living and living without Her, without anything.
He'd believed they would grow old together.
One stranger, one stab, and his one reason for living was
gone. He'd based his future around Her. Around the belief that
they would be married, raise a family, then die. The order had
gotten muddled somehow. And now his chance for family, his
chance for life, rested in a box in the coroner's office.
Once, he might have thought he would see Her again. He would
have felt Her in his arms. He would have whispered to Her,
heard Her voice. He could almost believe it wasn't true.
But he couldn't believe anything.
He sat in the window, facing west, and waited for the sun to
rise; to illuminate the tears that ran unchecked down his
cheeks.
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