Hey guys. As promised, here is another chapter from "Love in the City." Enjoy. (Please pardon any typos. I still haven't finished all of my edits.)
Chapter 19
Snowflakes
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unrise had chased away the nighttime darkness and for a time, the
morning sky had been beautifully blue and crystal clear. The sun’s lips had
planted it’s warm kiss on the cold winds but winter’s touch would not be
denied. Grey clouds blanketed the heavens and gently dusted the city with white
snowflakes. Before long, those flakes accumulated and the snow on the ground
became quite deep. For people who were from warmer climates where it was never
really cold, it was a magical thing to behold. For the people who lived in that
city, it was magical too. Every year they witnessed four seasons, winter,
spring, summer and fall but there was always something special about the times
when snow fell from above. It was an inconvenience for sure when it became too
deep for people to walk in and treacherous for folks to drive in but, it caused
the city to actually seem quiet for a time. That itself was almost a miracle.
Persephone opened her eyes but to her surprise, she wasn’t in her bed.
She was on her own back porch, wrapped tightly in two thick blankets with a
knitted hat on her head. She had been stuck inside for so long that she almost
forgot how fresh air felt against her face and she wondered if she was having a
very vivid dream, or if maybe she had finally died. She wasn’t in pain so the
latter might have been true bit if she were dead, she was certain that she
wouldn’t have needed blankets or a warm hat to protect her from the cold. So,
if she wasn’t a ghost yet, someone must have brought her outside because she
definitely hadn’t walked out there on her own. She could barely make it to the
bathroom right next to her bedroom without help. When she turned her head to
her right, she saw whom, right next to her on another patio chair.
“I don’t remember walking out here,” Persephone said feebly and still
sleepy. Her voice was rough and raspy.
“That’s because you didn’t,” Germaine answered. He leaned across to put
his arm around her and kissed her affectionately on the cheek.
“You picked me up? And carried me all the way out here?” she asked her
husband who did something every day that made her remember how amazing he was
and also, how much it would hurt her to pass on to somewhere he couldn’t travel
with her. “Damn…either you’ve been working out or I’m really getting frail,”
she joked.
“I’ve been working out,” he said with a grin and they both laughed.
“The weatherman said that this might be the last big snowfall this winter and I
wanted you to see it.”
Germaine was close enough to Persephone that she was able to rest her
head on his shoulder. He turned and kissed her forehead when she did. Then he
turned his face back towards the sky and the snowflakes that fluttered down
from so very high up above. For a while, they sat together in silence and
watched the snow fall. Being so close to each other, neither one of them felt
cold.
“For most of my life, I thought my mom named me Persephone just because
she maybe saw it written down somewhere and thought it was pretty. I was always
the little black girl with the funny name. Do you know who Persephone was?” she
asked her husband.
“No, tell me,” Germaine answered even though he knew Greek mythology
just as well as she did. He just liked hearing her speak after he had spent so
many nights fearfully watching her suffer in her sleep. There were too many
days when she quietly endured all the pain her disease tormented her with.
“As the story goes, Persephone was kidnapped by the god of the
underworld, Hades and tricked into being his wife,” she started to explain.
“That’s how I feel now, like Death is coming to kidnap me and take me away from
you,” she told him.
“Wherever you go, I’ll follow and find you,” Germaine told his wife.
“I’ll kill Hades himself and take you away.”
“And I’ll wait for you to come get me,” she answered.
For a few minutes, they quietly watched the snow. Since they’d been
together, they’d always had a gift for speaking to each other without words.
They communicated on a different, higher frequency than most people and even
though she was dying slowly, their bond was still strong. Persephone would
often say that they were both twin flames and soulmates. Love like theirs was
rare. Germaine broke the silence first after a random thought about something
from his past popped into his head.
“When I was a kid, a little girl in my kindergarten class told me that
her parents told her that whenever angels cried, it rained and that every drop
that fell was really the angels’ tears,” he said and then sighed. “That always
seemed like such a beautiful, poetic concept and I know that it’s a sweet way
of looking at it but that idea always bothered me.”
“Why?” Persephone asked.
“What that meant always terrified me. The thought of what could
possibly be so awful…so scary that it would make angels weep always worried me
in an unhealthy way. I mean, what could possibly break the hearts of beings who
went to war with the devil? I could never get that question out of my head.
Ever since my classmate told me that, a weird sadness has always come over me
whenever it rains…and it always made me a little afraid,” he confessed.
“You were a strange kid,” she joked and slapped his thigh as they
cuddled.
“That’s true. I really was…but you want to know something?” he asked.
“What?” his wife asked.
“I finally understand what could be so terrible that even angels would
cry about it,” he said and then looked at his wife with such deep, piercing
sadness that she knew exactly what he meant without him having to say another
word.
“Can you help me do something?” Persephone asked.
“Of course. Anything,” he answered.
“Help me up and walk me out into the yard,” she asked.
“But the snow…it’s really deep though,” he cautioned.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind. I just want to feel the snow falling down
on me one last time,” she explained. “This is probably going to be my last
winter.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t know that,” he started to say.
“No doctor can tell you when you’re going to die. Doctors and so-called
experts are wrong all the time. You don’t know that so you don’t say
that,” he said.
“I want to be real with you baby…because I need you to be strong…and I
need to know that you’ll be able to move on when I’m gone. I feel myself
slipping away…so you have to promise me that you’ll live when I go. Promise
me,” she pleaded but her husband gave her no reply because he refused to make a
promise that he knew he couldn’t keep.
Germaine did as she asked and helped his wife to her feet. Together,
they stepped out into the backyard from underneath the awning. Their feet sunk
as least a foot into the deep snow but they ignored the cold. The wind wasn’t
very strong so the large flakes floated down gracefully like tiny feathers.
Like children, they both stuck out their tongues at the same time to catch the
cold flakes on the tips of them. They admired the melancholy grey sky, speckled
with tiny, icy white particles of white that took on their own unique, magical
shapes as they fell from above.
“If raindrops are really the tears of angels, what do you think
snowflakes are made of?” Germaine asked.
“I don’t know…but when I pass away and move on to my next
adventure…I’ll be sure to find out,” she answered.
“When you do, I want you to show me every secret you’ve uncovered once
I get there too…so wait for me…and I swear I’ll find you,” he told her, as he
fought back tears.
“I will. I promise,” she said and hugged him just a little bit tighter,
with all of the strength she could muster.
Copyright
© 2017 Keith Kareem Williams
All
rights reserved.
