The last time he saw her, long honey hair braided in two and tied hastily at the ends with bright
green ribbons, was the last time he smiled. She stretched her tanned arm out the window and waved an excited
good-bye, lighting up the platform with her smile and shining eyes. Last-minute
passengers jumped aboard, just in the nick of
time. That day, haunting his memory like a
game of cat-and-mouse, was the last of
happiness for them. Their
lives were shriveled up things now, their hearts dry and cracked. They could not
invent a future for themselves, void of her. On her twentieth birthday, they lowered an empty coffin into the ground. Their tears fell heavily, and silently melted into the orange
sunset. The had to, some how, close the book. Love, joined loss,
underground.