Faded

via Daily Prompt: Faded

He looked at her once beautiful face, now set in resignation, the lines around her eyes the only indication of all the laughter there had been in her life. But that was before. Before her husband sank to the bottom of the sea. Before her friends faded away, one by one. Before her children were drawn into their respective families, their love for her evident, yet useless. Before the laughter vanished – for who can laugh alone?

Nowadays, even while thinking of the happy times, while going through the old faded albums, she couldn’t quite grasp the feelings she had then. What did it feel like again – to laugh hysterically at 3 a.m. with your friends? What was that confused swirl of feeling she knew she had when he had first kissed her? The pain and unimaginable joy that accompanied each of her children as they arrived in the world. She could no longer remember them. she knew they had existed, but she could not feel. Before long, her face  had acquired the  passive expression of one who is finished with the world.

She was not unhappy. Quite the opposite. She had lived a satisfying life, had achieved all she had dreamt of, and now, she felt there was no meaning in continuing. That was all there was to it. But she was not the kind of woman who could just die. No. She would live, and see the world for as long as fate decreed. Like a fading photograph, she would exist, until the tides of time dragged her into its unfathomable depths, dragged her deep into the same darkness her love rested in.

He smiled.

Maybe it was time for them to meet.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Because I could not stop for Death

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
At recess—in the ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—’tis centuries— and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity—

-Emily Dickinson

Faded