Tabula Rasa

His hand swims lazily, effortlessly, a bird floating in mid-flight. Dipping and diving with each neverending gust. He has survived his first Melbourne winter. It was perfect. Crisp, soft, sodden in all the right places. Something that felt a little like home. Kind. Unexpectedly, somewhere along the way, his heart had been broken. The loss of a companion held most dear. In the moment it had throbbed with an acute, blinding rage - a tremor in his chest that he had never experienced before. Today it aches with majestic consistency. The poem written for the funeral had come easily, for it had been for her. Daze-fuelled and full of naïve denial, its content felt entirely imaginary, intangible. He reads it now, slowly. It stills feels imaginary, and he wonders if the words will ever be anything more than just that. Soon he is aware that his hands are empty. He gazes out across the Ranges, hoping that someone, somewhere, finds that scrap of paper and that they themselves get lost in a vision of a person they wholeheartedly adore. The melancholic chill walks him home. Late September, something echoing numbness swims all around. This year brought with it the return to lands once roamed together. They feel like different landscapes now, things have moved, shifted. The colours are all wrong. Buildings seem so much heavier. Skies of nothing but sleet and charcoal. There was time before, and now there is time after. He can make sense of neither. Late September, a life that screams of loneliness. Somehow things have gotten worse. Books will catch him by surprise. Silly films will reduce him to tears at the most inopportune moments. Discovered lines will never be shared again, it is a realisation of devastation. Late September, sleep deprivation and pure disbelief. Children have walked through the door. His life is different, it is experienced in a way she will never know. He is so angry at her. He is so sad for her. Late September, the eternal scent of something burnt. His head is somewhere else entirely. He cannot concentrate. He cannot contain his rage. He fears that he is spiralling. Late September, space. His eyes are fixed on the hills in the distance. He has come here for himself. For her. For everything that they were and will always be. It has been a difficult month, September always is, but this one feels more poignant than most. Five years. It is unfathomable. He thinks back over these past five years and the pain they have brought. The unbridled joy and agony he has felt. Grief is a creature of wicked tricks. Sneaking attacks and incomprehensible blows. It is time to put her somewhere safe. His heart is ready. The sun dips to that magical place and its rays suddenly explode throughout the sky - delicious pinks that somehow transform kaleidoscopically all the way to deep, dense blues. Rose to sapphire. Pastel. Soft. Entirely heartbreaking. ‘There she is,’ he thinks. ‘Happy Birthday.’