Let's go!

The light mist at the horizon blurred the sea into the sky in one uniform shade of cobalt blue. She sat on the jagged outcrop of rock, overlooking the bay. The wind had not changed, in all these years. It still sang to her, a different tune every time - just what she wanted to hear. The blues it sang now seemed beckoned her to fly far away, from beyond the open sea.

She stared into empty space with tired eyes. Half open with memories, half closed with a life gone by. Clouds that had morphed into the shape of wooden horses, were melting like orange chocolate souffle. She could see the surf breaking on the shore. Flashes of white hope that disappeared as soon they formed.

Sixty one. Had it really been that long? She held her right hand in front of her and traced the lines with her left hand. Another thing that had not changed. Her aging fingers were shaking now. Funnily though, because she had never been more sure of what she was going to do next.

She opened the chain of her leather purse. Yes, it was time. She took out the crumpled, folded sheet of paper from the purse. The folds had become as much a part of the sheet as the writing. She opened the letter and read it one last time. Time, that seemed to have a way of getting lost in its folds.

Threads of a frayed memory,

Yarns of a future that has passed,

A night wrapped in a letter you wrote,

And a few days of monsoon.

Autumn of a few crumpled leaves,

An evening lost in a fight,

Clothes let out to dry, and a dry heart,

Crescent of the new moon.

Permission to breathe one last time,

Last moist breath of that parting kiss,

Mottled pages of that novel you wrote,

Now, then, sometime soon.

A few stones broke loose and rolled down, as she stood up. Her legs had gone to sleep. Yet, she wanted to peer down and see exactly where the rocks broke the fall of the nothingness around her. She bent her head down and held her loose spectacles with one hand, lest it fall down before time. That would be such a pity. She did not want to loose a second of the view, all the way down.

  This place was just right. She could see the endless sea before her, the infinite sky over and the hard, lifeless rocks below. "Grandma, grandma!" A voice called. She turned around. A small figure in a polka dotted dress was running towards her from the direction of the foster care home. "It's time for dinner, grandma." "Coming, sweetheart."

With one last look at the letter in her hand, she let it go. She stood there as it dissolved into the wet evening. A tiny hand gently slipped into her trembling fingers. "Let's go, grandma." "Yes, my love, lets go."

- Dark Shadow!