Stranded

The sun surrenders to the horizon, leaving behind layers of amber and rose-gold clouds that fade into deep indigo—each hue a slow confession to the night. Near a valley, dusk drapes the grand contours of the distant mountains in its dark embrace. Faint light seeps from nearby dwellings, spreading across the sedated land until its shapes turn to traces—souvenirs of Earth’s past. We bury bygone days deep in some distant gorge, but the past resurfaces; it endures. As the time ticks on, the ambient sound loses its vigor, a hush cloaks the bustling metropolis. The world itself exhales after a long day. The land seems to whisper: nothing ever truly ends – only transforms.

When the day dissolves into dusk, a chronic emptiness stirs—a sense of drifting self – memories of that first meeting surge like a geyser in spring. There was no cinematic introduction, no dazzling exchange of smiles, no amorous gaze. Only a wink—something revealing, a promise to ride along unknown detours that awaited them both. A gesture that rewrote two orbits. There were knowing nods, silent loops of I see you. Silence spoke louder than words.

Both souls were grounded in affection, devotion, and the faint ache of desire. From acorns of ordinary exchanges, an oak of attachment rose—its sheltering branches a refuge of tenderness and belonging. The memory of the first day, and of the many chance meetings that followed, cannot be filed away in a keepsake box. They live in countless recollections, between the creases of old skin wrapped around frail bones—where a curve time never planned but shaped nonetheless. The end announces itself in whispers.

Voice, hum, words- worn by distance and dust -still leave their trace in the air. Every squeak in the wooden floor remembers a shared mewl, once tangible, now elusive. Now, when all the foliage lies in slumber and clocks hang suspended in waiting, silence lingers too long.

Some turn inward, seeking sustenance from the unseen. The ghost of love returns—but only as a shadow, a scent, an outline. The room fills with the faint aroma of a throw blanket once shared. On the sofa lies a pallid form—the only vessel through which the escaped soul visits. Apart yet bound by wonder, they face the chasm between them: a barren expanse where friendship once sprouted but never rooted. They stand motionless, paralyzed by their own reasoning, before the wasteland where their meadow of intimacy has withered.

They begin to learn that to love is to take enormous risks—many of them—and to accept the constant loss of oneself in another. It is spadiceous: a deep reddish-brown blending red’s passion with black’s shadow, both still visible in their union. No music can capture its rhythm, no scale can contain it, no word is honest enough to define it. All possessions fall short of paying homage to love. Yet, once immersed in it, life glows like a radiant star.

In its ruins, one must bleed alone. Love rarely dies with fanfare. It starves the soul in silence, while no one inquires after the wounded heart. In desperation, the fortunate few rediscover the will to forgive, the courage to release, and the tenderness to love again—not as before, but with the wisdom of what was lost.