she came to my room dark and weighted down. i held her in the doorway, the Woman in Black. hugging a bleak stiff figure. i looked her in the eye and argued all the muddled and desperate wisdom of my middle years against her gloom. we are not made strong enough to stand up against endless grief. and yet pain is the constant drone of life.so if we are to have any happiness at all it is only in the passing instant. this past season together had been an exception to the general miserable conditions of existence. as had those two summers back in the old world. surely it is a sin to reject the few gifts we are given. be happy in the flash of time granted us or hurt forever. those are the harsh and contradictory rules Creation has laid down for the game we are forced to play.
***********
-- i have to go tomorrow
-- go?she draws the veil back down, leans, and kisses the corner of my mouth, the viel between our lips grainy and resistive.
-- go where?no answer.
-- where? i said
-- away.
-- this will break us both, i said.
thirteen moons
by charles frazier
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