By A Rose

|🌹THE END🌹|

A few weeks after the Crucifier had been caught, seasons changed and it was finally winter.

The white on the tree tops, chimneys and other sky-high buildings displayed itself in the glamour of crystallized icicles and snowflakes.

Window panes sniffed the frost which created a blur canvas for kids to play on and draw pointless sketches.

Thin ice lay on every open space that was once a calm lake and every one with good legs, soon became an ice skater irrespective of their age group.

Wesley Stark and I were truly free. Free to love. Free to roam the earth. Free to laugh from our hearts. Free to love others. My nightmares became mid-night fantasies. Good fantasies, which looked like visions that held a glimpse of the joyful future ahead of me.

I did have joy. Joy that was clearly more than a million fold, for there was no human I did not smile at while, I walked the streets of Los Angeles, escorted by peace.

Yes. I did have joy in my soul but one curse never left me.

Some called it a gift but to me, amnesia would have been my closest friend, for this curse was called ‘Memory’.

It had curled itself in my brain, trying so hard to enclose the beautiful dreams I often had.

Sometimes, I felt like individuals educated in the field of science, had lost their minds. How could they say, memories were developed and stored in the brain, when my heart bore unbearable pain at the remembrance of all whom I had lost before I found peace.

My mother, my father, Mark, Rhonda, Andre, Mr Conner, Jamie, Nathan…Every one of their faces were as clear as a new polished crystal in the depths of my heart.

Their smiles, their laughter, their tears, all of it still remained in my memories. Their deaths, their stone cold faces, their pale skins and the red liquid that flowed unsteady from a hole in the centre of their chests. I could never forget it. I could not.

The red roses remained the flowers I detested, which was aided by hate and dread.

I tried so hard to forget all of it. I opened my heart to the wonders of therapy. I took yoga classes which made my limbs flexible, but my heart remained a steady rock and my memory was as sharp as ever.

I watched almost a thousand and one movies, some of which I could not understand the language used.

I did so much exercise; I burnt fats that were not even in my body.

Music classes, Acting classes and even Kung Fu classes, just for the fun of it, nothing worked. Not a single thing.

Nothing on earth could distract me from the thoughts of those I had lost. Nothing could erase their dead faces from my cursed memory.

But there was one thing that worked. The one thing I was grateful for. Wesley Stark.

The sight of Wes wiped out images of the past, along with unusual beats in my heart. I had stolen Wesley Stark’s heart and he had stolen mine. The love we shared made me see life in a whole new perspective.

The blessed gift called ‘love’ had given me something greater than joy. Something better than hope. It was something I could not describe, but every day I remained grateful to God for the existence of Wesley Stark.

The dead were dead and love filled the air in the perfect season of Christmas.

The single moment in the year, where the world believed in miracles blessed my soul with gladness, for it was the season Wesley and I decided to say our vows.