untitled: all i can do was shake my head and smile

Jason stretched his legs on the green grass. He stared at the small pond in front of him, squinted a little when the light glistening on its surface reflected into his eyes. The sun was beating down on everything around him, and the shade of that big tree gave him shelter. At least he was safe even temporarily. But he has something else beating down on him, one that he cannot find shelter from no matter where he goes. Jason was suffering the pain of someone leaving, someone who took part of him away. He can never be whole again.

Jason leaned back, his two legs out in front and his weight rested on his two outstretched arms at the back. He let his face against a soft breeze that came from the pond. He imagined them to be Cathy’s breath and a soft kiss would follow. There was no kiss, just a rustle of grass. Near the shore Jason counted little waves that hit like seconds passing. Like him, time was only waiting to be finished.

He fished a small locket from his left pocket. He let it dangle in his fingers for a while, staring at it and playing with it like a little boy with a spider on a stick. He watched as the locket swung on its chain. It was a silver likeness of a dolphin that has just hopped out of the water. Cathy had a thing for dolphins, and this was hers. Jason remembered how she had given him this locket, to be a remembrance of sorts. But it turned out to be a goodbye token, something that Jason found too heavy to drag along. He opened it, and inside was her name scratched on it. Cathy scratched it herself, adding that it would be more personal, more intimate, more sincere.

“It’s over now Cathy.” Jason said under an incomplete breath. He stared straight into nowhere, his mind somewhere else, drowned in thoughts of her. He saw her there, running on the grass, wading on the shore next to the tied up boat. She would glance on him, and her hair would fly with the wind. She was very beautiful, that even a rainy day seemed perfect for a picnic. Cathy would simply light the whole world up. His visions of her brought tears to his eyes, and he closed them just in time before some fell. He cannot cry, must not cry. He promised her that. He would take it like a man, and be strong. His loneliness is eating him inside.

Jason wiped his eyes with his forehand, still clutching the locket in his left palm. He laid the locket down on the grass to his right, and the single red rose that he had brought along. “I will never forget you, and I will never stop loving you. But now, I have to move on.” Jason bent down and kissed the ground. A tear fell on Cathy’s grave.

He stood up and walked away.


writers note: the above story is fictitious and bears no reference to any real person or events. any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.