The Carriage

Image by Radosław Cieśla from Pixabay



She was gone. Truly gone.

Gazing after her as the fallen leaves settled into the
tracks of her carriage, Lester wanted nothing more than to run after her. To
run, and keep on running until he fell from exhaustion or else caught her
carriage.

But where she went, he could not follow.

Was there a deal to be struck with some supernatural force?
A genie or devil who could grant him one wish and save him from this grief? If
so, he would take that deal, no matter what they asked in return. He would
gladly take her place. She could be alive, and he would be carried away in that
accursed carriage.

With no idea how long he’d been standing there, tears
standing in his eyes, he turned to head back home.

It would hardly be a home anymore, not without her there.
Her smile would never again brighten its rooms, they would henceforth lack the
warmth of her love.

And yet, go he must, for he had nowhere else to go.

“Why were you taken from me, Rose?” he wailed, dropping to his
knees. The visions struck him again. Her joyful laughter. Her mischievous eyes.
The brush of her fingers against his during her precipitous fall.

Night had falling before he climbed up off his knees. He
trudged down the track worn down by wagon wheels, but the collected leaves
looked like blood in the moonlight. He rubbed his fingers against his thumb,
imagining a different fate, one in which he was there a second earlier. One in
which he caught her hand and drew her close, and hugged her.

And now he was at his door step. His wife waited just
inside, but he had no idea how to tell her their daughter was gone.

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