Autumn Leaves
Posted on Wednesday, 17 March 2004
He sat on the bench, cold wind stealing the heat from his fingers as he automatically and methodically took out the slices of tomato from one sandwich and placed them in the other. The white haired woman who sat beside him cradled his recently removed gloves in her lap, attempting to absorb the remnants of his warmth which they still possessed. He handed her the sandwich without the offending tomatoes and was rewarded with her sunshine smile. They ate in near silence, the beauty of the decaying autumnal scene drawing them in; and leaving them helpless to but gaze as the wind swirled the bodies of the leaves into the sky, giving them life once more.
There was a heaviness to the air, it was waiting and the wind lulled in an attempt to hear what was about to pass. The leaves drifted to the ground as the woman placed her soft, creased hand in his and turned to face him.
“You have been such a good friend to me, the best of friends and I find that I cannot do without you. It seems that I’ve loved you all my life without ever telling you so.” Her bright, age defying eyes smiled gently at him, “I love you William and I wish I could have seen with the clarity I do now, during my foolish youth.”
He also smiled and the lifetime of merriment the two had shared etched itself deeper on his face, “We knew it in our hearts and I have enjoyed our years as friends tighter as much as if they had been years as lovers.”
He lovingly stroked the back of the hand clasped in his with his thumb and the touch that in her youth would have fired her passion now in her old age comforted and enfolded her in warmth. He shuffled closer and placed a protecting arm around her.
“My dearest Elizabeth, I love you too and will love you forever.”
Their lips touched together in the tenderest of small kisses and it was like a tiny pale pink rose opening to greet the sunshine of its very first day. The wind roared once more and flew past two young people in a friendly hug, back past a couple standing awkwardly together, to the gate where an argument was raging and then into the street where two perfect strangers passed each other and as their eyes connected the spark of two halves of a whole finding one another once more flew between them. The history of the old, loving couple spread through the present of others. The wind twirled its way through the branches of the tree whose last leaf was yet to fall, until the hour was late and it disturbed the moonbeams on its way.