Late autumn afternoon, the breeze has chilled now till your breath becomes mist curling from between your lips like silver tendrils into the air.  

They don't tell you that when you die, you'll exist forever.  Who would want to know?  With no way of returning to the life you've intimately known, but caught for eternity in the world you grew up in.  I've grown accustomed to the constant throb of the tides; the heart beat of the earth, that pulses through my spirit form.  I've grown as accustomed to it as I once was to breathing.  But now I don't breath, my heart no longer pumps blood through my veins.  Yet I exist, yet I can still feel, still cry, still taste and, though this pains me most of all, I can still love.

You sit on our bench where we spent so many early evenings.  Unbeknownst to you, I sit at your side, on your right.  You have the bench to yourself now, yet you still keep to your side, your rucksack placed between your legs rather than in the empty space.  Your loneliness makes me ache.

The afternoon begins to draw to a  glorious close and the vivid, almost neon quality of the empty sky turns duck egg blue.  The clouds that hang in magnificent white wreaths along the horizon are caught up by the steadily setting sun.  They drape across the previously yellow orb, obscuring it's perfect circularity and turning it from yellow to crimson.

I turn to you, perhaps too soon in these early evening proceedings, but I am rewarded.  You're face is lit by the dimming light and the brilliance of colour has flooded your eyes, bringing them to life the way I've dreamt of seeing them.  The paleness of your eyes has acted as a canvas and upon them is painted all the ardour of that landscape scene.  I find the sight of you becomes hazy as I blink tears from my eyes.  Tears you cannot see, tears you cannot hear, but tears for you nonetheless.  

I look back and follow the sunlight's flow through the valley across from ours.  The light there is not obscured by clouds and eagerly spills out across the misty fields.  It turns the moisture in the air golden.  It shimmers, hanging above the ground and gives the land we know so well, a whimsical atmosphere.  I am reminded of far more distant lands, where magic resides.  Here, their brilliance would have found competition.

Now the sky has become lilac and the clouds are highlighted with pale oranges and pinks.  I go through the motions of taking a deep breath, for even though it is unnecessary for my sustained existence it still has the ability to calm me.  When I feel duly braced, I turn to you again.  Your eyes are wide, a sadness to them I have not seen for years.  Yes, they are reflecting pink, lilac and the pure white of the clouds.  

As I watch you, you smile and my hearts sings.  My eyes flicker shut with the strength of the sensation, I was not aware that once dead, one could still experience such heightened emotions as this.  I believe it is you, you who breathes this joy back into me and makes me feel like I'm living again.  

When I finally reopen my eyes, I'm 100 meters in the air.  The landscape below me a wash of the hazy greens and golds of fields, stretching out below me.  Had I known then what I know now, I would have taken you with me.  The colours wash my translucent form in their radiance and I fool myself that I am one with the sun set.  I rise further, staring down at you on the bench, the colours in the sky before us washing over you like a flood, filling every inch of your bare skin with light.  I wonder, how are you not blinding by it?  How do you watch on when you're perfect face is a glow with light?   

Then, as if my thoughts had caused you to realise your vulnerability, you stand to leave.  I watch you, silently, everything I do now is silent.  You take one last, long, penetrative stare, you turn and walk back to your car without a second look back across the rapidly dimming landscape.  My spirit heart is silent in my pale translucent chest once one and my height above you increases at the rate the sun sets.  Yet our ever increasing distance has no affect on how clearly I see you and the sorrowful frown creasing your perfect features.

My eyes are drawn back to the sky, the sun has set leaving behind it veins of silver that curl over the horizon like the mist between your lips.  The clouds have turned a threatening shade of slate blue and  I'm filled not with joy but dread.  I hear the engine of your car start so far below me, and your vulnerability terrifies me.  I am safe now, safe from all this dread, but you are not so secure.  You have left this scene now, left and fled to your home, back into your lover's arms, back into your security.  

They don't tell you that when you die you'll exist forever.  Whilst living, all one sees is the brilliance of the sun set, never the threat behind the clouds that remain long after the glorious colours have blessed the land.  I stare down at the world, through the darkness of space, from my security.  They say I shine, seem to glow of my own volition, but I merely reflect.  I reflect the sun's light, I reflect your sorrow, I reflect your perfection.  Now, in death, I am endless.