In another time

She  stood alone, quite alone in the rubble that had once been solid ground. The debris lay scattered; a solitary shoe here, a cap there. The bodies lay like dolls neglected by a child. Dead. All of them dead. She tried to move but her feet stopped her. Screams of agony resounded the bare walls somewhere.

She must move; she must find him.

The thought of his crooked smile forced her to find her way through the war blown field. A million thoughts crossed her mind as she scanned the debris nervously for the man she loved. No, he couldn’t be dead.

The hem of her gown swept the dirt but she hardly cared. Shards of broken glass found their way into her feet, unnoticed.

A group of soldiers stood scattered in the distance. She moved faster. The glass dug deeper.

He had to be here; he couldn’t have been gone.

“Alexei”, she screamed at the winds.

A couple of grenades went off the distance.

“You cannot be here, they are firing from across”, someone warned her. But she couldn’t stop.

“Alexei!” she shouted again, hoping the winds would help her find him.

It took an eternity for him to turn around. The same handsome face   looked at her from the distance, bewildered at her very sight.

She thanked the heavens.

“You shouldn’t be here Anna, there’s firing. The militia…”

“I had to see you in person”

“I cannot stay back Anna. We are outnumbered. But why did you ever come. You must be insane, this is war!”

She looked at his confused eyes as she tried to hold back the tears that would well up in a minute. She could say it. She could tell him now. At least she would be out of this agony.

But he wouldn’t understand. After all these years of knowing her, he was still oblivious to her love. She could tell him, but there would be more pain succeeding it.

He was saying something. Trying to reason with the damaged friend who stood before him. She could not hear him. All she could hear was her heart shatter into the rubble, yet again.

He was still moving his lip, smiling that crooked smile for a fleeting second when she saw it. The rifle, aimed ever so randomly at his heart.

“Alexei!” she screamed,  pushing him aside. The gunshot drowned most of it.

She fell to the ground, ever so lightly, ever so gently.

The navy gown would successfully hide the red that flowed, never emerging, just like her words.

He held her head in his arms as he looked at her in disbelief and betrayal.

“Why, Anna, why!”

Tears rolled down his cheeks, his eyes distraught.

The pain ebbed away, slowly. The worries fell to the ground. So this was what dying felt like. She smiled at him one last time, the man she loved, the man she would always love. The man who didn’t know.

She closed her eyes, drinking in his disbelief, his tears, as the blood flowed silently to join the smoking earth.

Perhaps in another life, she would tell him her story.