I sit in the silence which pervades the room where I shared so much of my heart with you. I am in the living room of my house, the one I bought thinking we would grow old together in. But Death has dictated that this was not meant to be. Reality laughed at my plans, as though it regarded me as nothing but a fool. In the place where Death has taken you, can you remember this place as I do, or has your memory of me been robbed from you, along with your life?

Here, in the remnants of my shattered life, I do remember you. We spent many days and nights here, you and I. You shared your heart with me, in the way innocents do when love welcomes them for the first time. I shared my soul with you, in a way I never have with another living being. There were the cold nights that we sat for hours, watching the fireplace under the mantle crackle its flames. There were so many nights threaded together with you, it felt like nothing could ever change what I had with you. I remember it as a place of joy, but that joy is no longer in my life. Now, t is only a memory. Because you are gone, forever. Death has made the possible become impossible, by severing you from me.

Through death, the web that has latched me to you tears for good, ripping my heart along with its tattered remnants as it is destroyed thread by thread. I can still see the web, feel it. I cling to what remnants that are still tethered to me. This illusion makes me imagine that you are still there, like a phantom limb after it has been severed from the body. But then, there is the true reality: you are gone. Death is the demon that has devoured the life that we had. It has snatched you from this world (and me), stealing away your laughter and your joy. Death has robbed the world by pilfering your beautiful soul for itself. More importantly, Death has seized you away from me. It has claimed you as its lover, abducting all that was good from my life, and my heart along with it. No amount of tears I shed at your loss can alleviate the agony of having what little I hold dear in the world stripped away from me. I know, and Death knows, I will never get it back.

What is this world without the sound of your voice, if all I can do is dream and remember the words you spoke of me? I can’t forget you, and yet remembering you is a web of agony. Reality torments me with its harsh lessons and mockery, instructing me with a cruel zest that you are nothing more than a dream and a memory. I am blinded by tears, and the world that exists with you in it becomes blotted and vague from my mind, and my vision. For what is the world without you? It is nothing but a fog that will never lift. You will never return. What is left after that?

There is a picture of a rainbow which lives on my living room mantle, above the fireplace. You know the one, for you chose it for me just a year ago. It was the pastel you liked at the fair we visited every year, hand-drawn on cardboard by an artist who created masterpieces there on the spot. The rainbow made you smile. Your happiness brought joy to me, but not just to me. The artist who created the picture was so captivated by your mirth, that she almost gave her work to us for free until I insisted otherwise. I tried to give the picture to you, but you refused. You told me, I needed it more than you did. I didn’t understand what you meant, but trusted the wisdom that you seemed to live by, underneath the surface of sunshine that dressed you constantly.

You always loved the picture, I know. Every time you visited me, you would tell me how rainbows were a promise that the world would never be flooded again, because the God you believed in said so. I always wanted to believe you, to retain the simple faith that seemed to have been born with you. I wanted to bask in the optimism your devotion promised, with the sun that always shined in your soul. I wanted to believe you, and I almost did. But the world I know now has been flooded by such a torrent of grief, I can’t see where rainbows promise anything but lies. The picture you so loved mocks me with its bright colors. I want to tear it from my mantle, shredding it as my heart has been torn to pieces. I want to stomp on it, shattering its vibrancy into darkness. I go to it, fully intend to murder it. The rage which sears me gives me enough life to pick it up, ready to send it to its death.

But yet, I don’t. I don’t know exactly what stops me in the last second before I wreck its sleek surface by spitting on it. I don’t know why, at all. I stare at it, as a single tear dances on the corner of the canvas that is still white and uncharted. I should slaughter it. I know that if this rainbow has promised that the world will never flood, it has destroyed my hope in promises. If the world could catch the volume of tears I shed over you, rainbows would fade forever in the depths of sorrow I weep. So the rainbow has failed to keep any promise to me, if this is all that it offers. If this is the only reason to spare the picture’s life, then there is no reason at all. I try again to force myself to begin to split it, tear it as I have been torn. My hand is ready to strangle it. Ready to cast my destruction onto another the way death has been visited upon me.

But I stop. I look at the picture, with its collage of colors that sparingly represent the world of visible light, knowing it has no life to offer me on the most literal of levels. But you are the one who taught me how life was more than the literal, where everything is concrete and tangible. Tears threaten their onslaught once more, as I think of the lessons you spoke to me. The picture with its rainbow becomes a blur of colors which dance and mesh together. It is like the God you always believed in cooked the perfect recipe of harmony where all ingredients disappear into each other, yet retain their individual beauty. Is this you speaking to me, or the God you so loved trying to touch me?

I choose to place the picture back on the mantle. As I do, the tears flood from me, and I let them flow and run their own course. They trickle away to a drizzle then a spatter, until the storm they have grown from spends itself as I blink to clear vision. Like some kind of finale, the storms make their exit from the sky, and the sun starts to break through. The burst of light reveals a rainbow. It is then that I hear your voice telling me that rainbows are promises that the world will not be flooded. As I notice the rainbow, I see you. Is it possible there is a world without flooding, as you have said? For the world now contains you in its rainbows, and the web which we created together seems to mend itself. Now as I see the rainbow, I can feel you within me, holding my soul the way you always did. My soul warms at this knowledge, for it means you have never left. You remain there, deep within my heart. You have returned to me, and I meet you once again.