“Why live life from dream to dream, and dread the day when dreaming ends?”

*****

The world used to be a beautiful place. Green leaves glistening on every tree, swaying in the breeze like a ballet dancer. Vibrant shades of azure and gold and amaranth adorned a thousand flowers. Birds would sing wondrous symphonies of days gone by and bliss to come. But how could a pretty little swallow know how horribly wrong it was.

The world is different now. Ashen and gray. All life’s creations have lost their innate beauty; color has left us. Everything the birds sing is a eulogy for lost love, lost time, lost hope.

Or at least that’s how it seems to me.

*****

Of all the occupations in the world, I used to be a poet. A tragically, romantically, hopelessly lost poet. I could paint you a picture with just a few words, rhyme my way into your heart. I could literally write you beauty and place it in the palm of your hands. Such a silly thing to ever want to be.

Now I’m a nothing. A lot of people say that, but not many of them actually mean it like I do. I’m practically a shell of a person. Words have no meaning. Life has no meaning.

Not since you took them away from me.

*****

I remember Sunday mornings most. I was descended from a fairly long line of Wiccans, so the day held no importance to me. But it was different for Brian. He wasn’t a devout Christian. He just wanted to remember that Sunday was special in a way, even if he never went to church or never prayed. So every Sunday he’d make me breakfast, and we’d sit and eat together. It was nice; he was the first person I’d ever shared an actual meal with. My family was always too busy.

Now on Sundays I don’t eat breakfast. I’ve been unintentionally starving myself trying to find you. And guess what? My diligence has finally paid off.

I finally know where you are.

*****

I don’t even bother to knock; I just open the door, walk right into your mudroom. I can hear the TV blaring from the living room, and deliberately I walk straight in, my face as set as stone. “Hello David.”

Your eyes widen when you see me standing there. You must have thought I was dead. “Singer,” you mutter in disbelief.

“So you do remember me.” I take a few steps forward, and though you don’t see any gun you instantly back yourself against the wall. “You didn’t kill me, David. You just put me in a coma.”

“Singer…”

“It’s the funniest thing. When I woke up after what you did to me, David, the doctor told me what you did to Brian.”

“Look, Singer, I didn’t mean –”

“I’m sure you didn’t mean anything when you killed him, David.”

You’re getting nervous now, I can see it in your eyes. The way I keep saying your name is driving you mad. “You took a gun and you shot me and then you shot him. But you didn’t mean anything by it, not at all.”

“I just wanted the money,” you insist. Ah, yes. The money. That stupid lottery put us on top of the world and had also put me through hell. It had got my Brian killed.

“People say an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But I don’t know, David. If I were blinded, I’d want the guy who did it to be right there in hell with me.”

Now you’re scared. I love it. You’re creeping along the wall towards the door, thinking that I don’t see it.

But I beat you there, walk straight out the door. I throw a single match, igniting the gas I had poured around the perimeter. I don’t look back as your life goes up in smoke.

*****

I used to have everything. He was all I could ever want and more. I was happy with him, happier than I’d ever been. It was like a fantastic dream.

But all dreams have to end.