Lost

Thoughts of his lost love filled his mind as he sat there, alone, in the dark. He could not help but wonder what had happened to her. He had searched for many years but to no avail, and had been forced to recognise the possibility that she had left him. That no dark fate had befallen her, that she had simply wanted to leave. After all this time he still wasn’t quite sure which was worse. Though the thought of her hating him enough to leave without so much as a note, broke his heart, he did truly hope she was happy. That somewhere out there she had found a more peaceful existence than she ever could have known with him. He had decided long ago that that was what real love was, wanting a person to be happy no matter your own personal loss. He hoped she had found another to love, though he knew he never would. He would never understand just how wrong he was in that moment.

 She had not left him a note for she had never reached their appointed meeting place. At the moment of his wondering, she sat, like him, alone and in darkness, but hers was far less pleasant. She lay on a thin straw mat, listening to the steady drip of water somewhere nearby. She kept herself as far from the iron bars as possible and tried to imagine a day when she would be free. Slowly, her thoughts slipped, as they always did, to the man she loved. She contemplated, surrounded on all sides by cold, hard stone, how long it had taken him to forget her. Had he searched for her? How quickly did he give up? A bitter part of her wanted to hate him for things she had only imagined him doing. A very small part of her wanted to believe that he was out there, looking for her, and that someday soon he would free her from this prison. Mostly though, she hoped he had found happiness, be it by himself or with another. She truly loved him, and that outweighed any selfish desire to fall into comforting anger, or desperate hopes.

 You may feel anger towards him for not trying harder, for not finding her, but in truth he would not have. He could have searched the rest of his lifetime and he never would have found her prison. She was lost. To herself as well as to him. He could not know of her suffering, of her silent pleas into the darkness for some escape, just as she could not know of the crack in his heart left by her absence, or the quiet tears he shed each night when he pictured her face. Had either of them known, it would have brought them each some small measure of comfort, but they did not. They had both faced many terrible things in their lives and would face many more, but they knew they would someday find peace, and they did, on the very same day.

 When they looked upon each other once again, they understood. They spoke not of the sadnesses of their lifetimes, they each simply took the other’s hand, and were finally at peace, with themselves and with each other. They walked together into the newest adventure, the life after this one.