Lonnie R. West

Poignant short story fiction. I wrote this a long time ago, and revised it over the years. Still a favorite of mine.

Golden highlights flickered through his silver hair as he sat gazing at the dancing flames. Quiet, the silence stole his breath for but a moment as he listened to the gentle roar of the fire; crackling embers punctuated the silence, seeming to say:

"Come, sit with me a spell, let my light entrap your eyes that I may show you your own reflection and echoes of your daydreams, gaze into my heart and find peace, come..."

He lit his pipe, inhaled. A tendril of smoke began to weave slowly through the air, and he sighed as he flexed his toes, soles of his feet warm from the glow of the fire. He settled back in the chair and watched the smoke roll like clouds, backlit by the amber glow. Secure and warm, yet somehow the faint occasional sound of the December wind still managed to make the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. He closed his eyes and walked back to an old familiar place:

Brittle dry grass crunched underfoot as he made his way back towards the clearing. The moon, small and distant and cold, cast its light across the trees and rocks and tombstones, throwing it all into a surreal sharp relief. He stopped. The dozen roses he held quivered as he brought them to his face, he inhaled. Searching for a faint hint of perfume brought only air, cold like broken glass, and a head full of half finished memories. Her smile engulfed him in a warm wave for an instant, and was gone.

She always loved roses.

He bent down and traced her name with his finger, remembering: Earlobe, down her jaw line, across the lips, a kiss; then laid the roses down next to an identical dozen from before. He stood, drew a deep sigh and looked around, it was mid-January now and the weather had long since rendered the trees barren and lifeless, and kept most of the people secure in their warm houses. He stood alone in the graveyard.

The clouds overtaking the pale moon and the emptiness of life in the clearing chilled him far deeper than the brittle air, and he pulled up his collar stop the cold from taking his heart. Lightning struck far away and the resounding roar shook him to his core as he reached up to wipe away the tears that stung his eyes.

"God, I miss you, Hon. I was so young, so...” He took an unsteady breath, closed his eyes. “...so stupid. I didn’t know then how much I needed you." His words hovered stillborn in the air, and dropped away.

He thought back on the times they had together and the promises they had made. No more. Lightly, a slight rain began to fall and he watched the droplets kiss the granite stone. 50 more years to walk alone, and his companion, his mate for that time would be nothing more than a flat black rock with her name artfully engraved, and ever waning memories of her smiling eyes watching him playfully. Suddenly, he turned away and gave a long sorrowful cry that echoed through the trees until it was lost in the thunder.

Father Daniels had tried to console him, and his words echoed now in his mind. Yet try as he might to find comfort or wisdom in them, they fall flat to the floor, barren and lifeless as this place. He turned back for one last look at the stone. Why, so young? Why, before they had time for the years to wizen them both? Why not him too? Sadly, he walked away leaving the lightning to sketch his shadow over the barren grave.

He stopped once, before a stand of evergreens, listening to the wind. For just a second, he thought he had heard voices... No. As he started to step forward once more, the hairs on the back of his neck and arms shot up and a sudden wild wind whirled through the trees. The evergreens twisted and danced, picked up an odd cadence, whispering 'I Looovvvee...', and as he put his foot back down he felt something tug his pants leg.

The wind was only a breeze again as he looked down to see what was snagged on his leg. He bent and picked up a single rose, fresh as if it had been cut but a moment ago. Heat shot up his arm and exploded in his chest as he fell to his knees, and every emotion he ever felt rang out in brilliant coherence like a strident bell. Wanting to laugh, wanting to cry, wanting to dance, and wanting to die he lifted the rose and smelled:

Her hair as he held her in his arms...
...Dancing in the sand as the waves rolled...
...A touch

It was her. Every sensation on a lost summer day, it all came back. He closed his eyes and held on to her. All the good things, all the good times, they are never gone. All the promises made and kept, and..., yet to keep! It was her. He opened his eyes and gazed at the rose, his mind clearing but the warmth never waned. That was when he knew, he knew, it would be all right.

Bells pealed away in the distance as the rose petals resolved into firelight. The clock was striking eleven. He took a sudden breath and let it go.

Silence. Stillness. The graceful pause between heartbeats before reality awakens.

The Cherokee used to say that fire contained powerful magic. The pipe was now cold in his hand, and he rose to tap the ashes out into the fireplace. The pictures on the mantel held his eyes as he put the pipe back in the holder, their polished brass frames gleamed like gold this time of night. A young man and young woman with bright eyes peered at him from several photos, and in the center was a single picture of her next to a glass vase with a single dried rose in it.

Looking at the photo, he could almost feel her in the room with him. "Good night, my love," he said, and listened for a moment to the faint crackle of the fire. Somewhere, across the silence and throughout the years, he knew she had heard him.