Blue

A Love Story

The clouds at the horizon slowly lose their golden glow as they dim into a more mellowed orange, melting into the deep haze of violet stretched across the sky. While the birds return to the trees to sleep, the flow of traffic doesn’t dwindle in town. A Gray-Haired Man emerges from a nearby pub and begins his return, like the birds, to his place of rest, crossing through a market place. The path is still unfamiliar in the new environment, and as he passes a woman, bending back up from having dropped a bag of groceries, their eyes catch for a second. Her eyes, those perfect, beautiful, sapphire eyes, so similar to the ones he remembered from years ago.

            She drops the groceries she had just retrieved from the earth, staring, opened mouthed into the man’s face. A tear falls to the ground as she mouths a name of insignificance to the Gray-Haired Man. She repeats this name, her breath catching the vocal strings in her throat. At first, a feeble step is made towards him, but then a sudden rush forwards, feeble arms embracing around his waist. She repeats the name, but the word falls on deaf ears.

            How many years? How many years had it been since he had felt this tight embrace around his middle, a soft face pressing deeply into his lower chest. How familiar the sensation of feeling his breath leave his lungs as his beloved squeezes him affectionately.

            He remembers her, more clearly than ever now; golden, flowing hair, streaming around the Aphrodite-esc face, framing two, oceanic gems. He remembers that golden stream flowing across his chest as they lay together, all of those years ago.

            The elder woman whisper’s the name again as she slowly, without loosening the embrace, stands on tiptoes, lifting her soft, aged lips to the Gray-Haired Man’s cheek. The warm burn and flush of blood to his face recalls the feeling of his lover, years ago; the memory of her whispering his name and leaving the print of her lipstick on his neck, cheek, lips. Their first kiss drifts into his mind. He was fifteen, a moon lit night, sitting beneath the star speckled heavens. The Gray-Haired Man closes his eyes as he vividly recalls how she had leaned across and kissed him in the same spot that had so recently made him blush.

The Man’s lungs expand as he takes in a deep breath. Then reality shifts into his mind and the heavenly perfection he was experiencing fades. His lover, for what seems an endless pass of moons, is dead. The experiences they were to share, to hold, and live together were stolen from him. This woman, despite how much he may wish it, couldn’t possibly be the woman he had fallen in love with, decades ago. This woman, with those incredible, heart stopping, angelic eyes, was nothing but a stranger.

            Let her hold him. For just a brief moment more, he longed for her embrace, before going back to the cold, lonely reality that awaited him. She pulls away, eyes closed, a smile tracing her closed lips. Even the way she pulls away from him, after sealing her love with a kiss to his lips, so many years ago, causes the man’s soul to yearn for time to allow him even a second more with the now reenacted memories that had tormented his existence for so many years. He sees in the structure of her face, she isn’t the woman from all those years ago, yet the eyes, those incredible, sky-filled eyes, seemed unmistakable. When her eyes are closed, he knows it’s not the woman that had danced in his arms, as they were joined in holy matrimony. It’s not the woman that had slipped a ring onto his finger, and forged a bond with two, simple, yet powerful words. It’s not the woman, who would tell him the three most important words of his life.

After slowly revealing her pair of blue shaded diamond irises, a wave of shock spreads across her face. The smile dissipates. The realization of her mistaking a stranger, for her own long lost lover, washes through her body, filling her heart with a burning sorrow, ripping away at her very soul.

            She denies it. Her arms release the Gray-Haired Man. She repeats her denial. The unrecognizable name fills the air with repetition. She backs up slowly, tears rolling down her cheeks as a sob escapes her lips. Denying the loss of her dreams, sobbing the name of her lover, she turns and runs into a near alley. In her rush, she runs into a portrait vendor’s stand, knocking over a large painting.

           The sales vendor curses at the wind that had knocked over one of his masterpieces. He gets up and crosses over to the fallen artwork, and lifts it back up again, revealing the painting of a woman, bent over to retrieve a fallen bag of groceries. She is looking up, out of the painting, staring into the eyes of the Gray-Haired Man with her eyes, those perfect, beautiful, sapphire eyes, so similar to the ones he remembered from years ago. The man turns slowly, leaving the painting of such familiarity behind as he returns, like the birds, to his place of rest.