She

A moment, real or imagined...

He watched her walk down the stairs and away from him forever.

She had given him a new lease on life. But it was like the rose that bloomed before dying.

He first saw her years ago in a faded photograph. He had been taken by her beauty, by the gentle goodness of her face, by the warmth in her eyes. And he finally saw her, and spoke to her, one fall afternoon just before Thanksgiving. He's lost the words, time has taken them from him, but he remembers her smile.

"You can come to my house for the holidays," she had said, and part of him thought she meant it. It wasn't until later that he found out that everything he'd dreamed about her was true.

Yet it didn't come close to reality.

And so she went on this crisp night in early autumn, and as she descended the stairs, his heart sank into the dark place, drowning into the abyss with which he was all too familiar.

"Goodbye," she had said.

Funny how the simple words hurt the most.