'Amazing Grace...'
The sirens screamed shrilly in the distance, red and blue lights flashing urgency across the inundated roads. The night sky void of the clouds and stars that made it complete. Smoke hung thick, swallowing the police car whole. They had rushed him the news as he was finishing the night shift at the station.
'...how sweet the sound...'
In the background; his lullaby. Pain now ringing through each arduous vocal. Melody's sweet voice ameliorated the numbed buzz of the sirens. Cash could still picture the soft ivory skin, framed by the gossamer blond ringlets and see those cherry pink lips as they rang out each note true and clear.
'...That saved a wretch like me.'
He clung to that memory. That smile. Those virulent azure blue eyes in the sunlight. The sweet orange vanilla scent. The subtle growing bulge of her stomach. He had wrapped two arms around her waist. Kissed those rose-petal lips like there was no tomorrow. She had paused, mid-song. Blushed as he trailed wandering fingers through her silky honey hair.
'I once was lost...'
The caustic red burned through the darkness. Shreds of his house glimmered amidst the fervid sea of red. The febrile flames snapped him back to reality with an acrimonious crack. Like a hungry beast the arid fire licked at the house; slowly and maliciously jeering at his entrapment.
'...but now am found...'
No. No... No. She couldn't be... They... She was immortal. Untouchable. The woman he would grow old with. Who he would raise children with. Who he would die with. But not yet. They were young. She must live. Cash could still see her, wrapped in his arms; indulging in loving kisses.
'...Was blind...'
The world was entrenched in some kind of malignant injustice. Police car skidding violently across the curb, he threw himself from the car's confinement. And then he was running across their lawn. He could feel the dissipating spray of the fire fighter's hose. Feel the burn of flames. They were screaming his name. Imploring reason. But the only name he heard was hers. And the only voice that spoke any reason were the clear notes Melody sung so sweetly. Over and over in his head until life and death became one apart.
'...but now I see...'
He could see the abyssal black body bag. He fell to his knees. Collapsing in silent prayer onto the burning grass. Screaming her name over and over, yet no words came out. Raw pain unlike anything ever felt before. Tearing at him. Shattering him. Breaking his heart like a hammer to a glass.
'T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.'
Came once a man whole; left a boy apart.