A Cruel Reality
On a windy late afternoon, the cemetery laid quiet, passages empty and foreboding. The sun was at the edge of the sky, casting light on the multitudes of graves that adorned the area. At the centre of it, Maya stood beside a mahogany tree with its leafless branches covered in frost.
She wore a long brown jacket and a black skirt beneath it that flowed to her knees. She had a short dyed red hair tucked away under her collar. Her small rectangular glasses slipped to the tip of her nose as a gust blew against her back. Under her right arm was a bouquet of roses cleared of thorns, recently bought from a nearby shop just off the block. A small brass necklace, heart shaped, dangled at the tip of bouquet by two pieces of tape.
She took her time looking at the gravestone before her as she breathed the bitter wind around her. A small sad smile appeared on her fox-like face when she gazed at the name encrypted on the grave’s surface.
“Elizabeth Marie Merrywood,” the grave read. “From 1987-2009, your family’s hearts will always be with you.”
By her right leg, Maya knelt down towards the grass below her feet. She placed the bouquet by the gravestone, and took the necklace that dangled at the tip of the flowers. She curled the necklace around her hand before she wrapped it around the gravestone. It sparkled from the setting sun that lay at the edge of the horizon.
“It has been more than ten years since we last met.” Maya softly muttered. “And, on the day that I was supposed to meet you, this had happened.”
She paused, clasping her hands together while she uttered a short silent prayer. Around her, she heard the breeze that echoed through the walls, the rustling of rose petals by her side, and the dying chirp of a sparrow by the mahogany tree.
“I will never forget you,” she finally uttered standing up to glance at the multitudes of graves before her arranged, in perfect rows and columns. With her hand by her hair, she felt the next wave of wind blowing against her back while she succumbed to the solitude around her.
With a simple nod, she left leaving the necklace rustling against the coming zephyrs. She never looked back at Elizabeth’s grave for it was her belief to leave the soul to look at the various gifts that were presented to them.
As she was walking close to the tall steel gates, she turned and looked at Elizabeth’s gravestone among the other graves that surrounded it.
She never knew her in person. She had never talked to her nor had she seen her on the crowded streets of Wellington. She was a stranger, a person who played an insignificant part on her life. Yet, she was a person with whom she had a connection. They both knew the murderer.
When the breeze had caught up with her, the streets and walkways were bare. The sky became an orange palette. The shadows of the buildings stretched out over the streets like the hands of a begging beggar reaching towards her. Maya held her hair again gently by her hand just as she passed the playground.
It was four blocks away from the cemetery. She had passed the playground many times of the year. Each time she walked home from her office, the jubilant shouts of the children welcomed her. She slowed her pace every time and took in the lighthearted cries of the children.
Each time she stopped, she took out a small photo from her breast pocket. On the back, the words “Be with me forever” was written in scribble while a photo of two children-a boy and a girl- adorned the front part.
The girl had brown-cropped hair, wore a black and grey t-shirt and a red dress. While her brother had light brown hair that fell smoothly to his forehead, he wore a long green shirt with the image of a crow embedded on it. The girl’s arm was locked against her brother’s neck. Both stood close to each other as they prepared for the camera with a broad smile by their round little faces.
Maya smiled to her own childhood self and the jubilant smile that once adorned her face. She took one last glance at the children before she left them to their own business.
She had always adored her brother. Her childhood was filled with their companionship from the time she wrapped her arms around him when he was a baby to the time they started school.
They had never left each other and she protected her brother if anything went wrong even if it meant beating up the whole rugby team.
Those little instances put a smile on her face as she strolled through the quiet streets of late afternoon Wellington. She thought of another idea; it has been more than a decade since she had last talked to him, met him or had seen him in full view. For when her mother took Maya last view of her home, they never saw each other again. She was thirteen when that happened.
For many years, she had wondered about him. She asked herself various questions every night about him but she never got the right answer. Just simple guesses and theories roamed around her mind. She doubted that any of these were true. Yet at the same time, she had not sought him or had even bothered to look for him. The brother she missed existed only in the depths of her psyche.
When she was close to home, a small bungalow coated in dark red colored bricks, she saw a figure, a man beside her doorstep. He looked in the direction of her house, his head moved up and down from the aquamarine colored roof to the small garden below the window. She tightened her grip upon the documents not looking away from the person by her house. A bus soon passed her coupled with the late afternoon breeze. Her hair blew across her face enveloping everything but the corners of her left eye. As Maya pushed strands of her fringe back to her forehead, the stranger suddenly turned his body towards her.
