====== Choices ======


by Vicky H


The wind blows roughly against my face but the cold does nothing to me. I can still sense the wind and I still know that it is cold but I cannot feel the harsh insensitive sting that it would have once brought to my cheek.

I still remember what it was to be Carmina and her thoughts and feelings still linger on within me. Where she once loved I know I still love. But my body is burned away into Light and my pains and desires with it. I cannot be sure whether I am still what I once was.

That man, with blood on his face and in his hair, he carried a spear with him. I can see it written in the stars. Not long now, little sister, he'll come to set you free.

That man reminded me so much of one I once knew. I had to remind myself that it was not Bill who stood before me. Same difference though really. People never really change.

I turn to look out across the plains to the meeting of the three tributaries, to where the Palace lies. I do not want to lose the memory of you but I think I should. Now and again I wonder if you think of me. But perhaps you have to much on your mind now? Or perhaps there is some other that has learned to give you what I could not. I don't know how much longer it will take me to forget you: a hundred years or maybe a thousand? And when you are long dead and everything you ever built has crumbled to dust, perhaps at last I might be free of you.

But I love him now. Not like I loved you but I do love him. And he is my world now.

"Carmina," he says, "should we be going now?"

And he is smiling but his eyes are full of sadness. I don't know what he said to her but I can tell now.
We are one now and our lives are irrevocably entangled. Together we will carve out the future and we will find ourselves with one another.

The wind still blows upon my face, more gently now. Sometimes I miss the cold.