a bittersweet eternity.

                                                       The sun shone.
         Deep in the middle of an endless valley sat a steep, foggy-bottomed hill that reached into the air and scratched the sky. Perched atop the hill was a dilapidated cottage, obscured by the shade of a wren-filled willow. Within its recesses lived an elderly woman, Autumn, who, despite having lived for longer than time could measure, had never ventured out of the wooden entombment. She would rock back and forth in her old, creaking rocking chair with her cat, Eden, resting in her lap. Endlessly swaying to and fro, they would listen to the sounds of nature beckoning from around them. There was no need for sleep and the sun never set.
         And so it was, the two separated by being, eyes directed out the window and his soft purr echoing through the cottage as he stretched his claws against her woolen dress, breaking through fabric, digging into skin. Her hand caressed his sides and tickled his spine, dragging down, lifting into the air and sweeping away his worries. He shut his eyes, feeling the soft pressure of her fragile fingertips and smooth palm, swirling over his back, gripping lightly at his skin like an empty canoe drifting down a brook. They were lovers bound without words to the eternal sway of an antique rocker.
         When springtime came, dandelions spruced from the muddy ground and black widows stretched out their legs from hibernation, stringing themselves down into Autumn’s curly peppered hair where they burrowed and moved up and down to the rhythm of her lonely pulse. Clouds wrapped their arms around the chalet and dispersed eager wrens through its open window. The birds roosted on Autumn’s shoulders where they pecked at the spiders nestling in her tresses. Yet she looked forward, unbothered by nature’s concerns.
         She continued floating through a sun-filled eternity.
                                                         ?          
         All remained pleasant. The creaking of the rocker against the floorboards continued along with the stroking motion of Autumn’s palm. Until, that is, one day the mixture of a warm breeze and Eden’s gentle vibrations lulled the elderly woman into an unfortunate slumber. Movement ceased and her arm dangled beside the chair.                                                              
                                                     ?          
         The rubbing depleted and Eden glared into Autumn’s face, confused by a sudden softened pace of breathing and the swift movements underneath her thin eyelids. He purred, waving his tail over her arm, questioning the abrupt halt. No answer, only light inhalations and gentle exhalations that whistled through the cottage like rustling brush. His tail fell limp against Autumn’s leg as he searched the room for answers. Nothing. Nothing more than three butterflies, hang gliding rainbows circling round the rocker. They galloped though the air and dipped down around his face, tickling his whiskers with their fluttering wings. He lifted his paw to swat at them but they whisked away into open skies. The cat watched from the windowsill.
         They floated down the earthly waterfall, dangerously gliding through the boiling champagne of the misty depths and thrusting themselves back uphill, swooning Eden with their majesty. He was allured by their flippancy, their utter disregard of perpetual containment. He leaped from the window and frolicked through moss and rock, twisting agilely, pouncing into the air.
         He followed them, pressing his paws firmly against the clammy soil as loose stones slid from under him and careened downhill. The butterflies flirted, swooping down over his ears and tickling his whiskers, kissing his cheeks and guiding him deeper. He followed blindly, looking back to see the decrepit, brown cottage plastered against a flowing overcast sky. Autumn, the birds and the widows remained, so he turned back to face misty moss leading to faded butterflies gliding through immeasurable fog. Frightened muscles clenched to bones and claws gripped the moist ground as he carefully edged his way towards his playmates. He hesitated, paying no attention to his steps as the butterflies zipped past uphill. He nodded his head to watch and his paws grazed through the loose soil like a knife cutting through cake. The cat’s hind legs lifted into the air, flipping, tumbling to the ground, spinning in circles like a fallen ice skater, rushing and flying, falling to the earth, tail between legs, eyes towards the cottage and into the hazy recesses he went, dirt, grass, butterflies and all.
                                                     ?          
         Butterfly wings tickled Autumn’s eyelids as she awoke, brushing them away with the swift movement of a hand. Her eyes undressed the cottage in uncertainty, perplexed by looming gray clouds. What just happened? Strong breezes blew at her hair, brushing scurrying widows into her face that jumped up and down in frustration. Eden. She stood up, looking around the room, shuffling her feet and digging her toes into missing sand. The widows perched into the air and raised their legs, arching themselves in combat position. They crawled over her skin, slipping in their fangs and clenching muscle against skin, spreading goose bumps across her body. Eden is gone.
         Words tumbled through her mind like broken trains, rattling along through non-existence as they sputtered indistinctly, trembling over her tongue and echoing into the cottage without response. Needles prickled up her spine and dug deep into the base of her neck. The venom raged like a rapid river. GET OUT OF ME. She squelched into the air, spraying blood with every cough onto the wooden floors. The corners, the doorway, the opened window… the opened window. She moved, lurching with pain as the poison took control of her, stiffening joints, pulling tendons off bone and clenching fingers into the air. Rigidly making her way to the door. Hands trembling, head shaking, heart breaking. Her body slammed against the entryway, sliding against it to the floor, crawling she went, reaching for the handle, gasping for air. I need, I have to…
         The door slipped open and out she fell exasperatedly to the ground, peering down into the fog as wrens picked at scampering spiders, tearing at her dress and gnawing at her skin. She coughed and clenched her fingers into the damp moss, gritting her teeth, the smell of mushrooms drifting into her nostrils as she drug her face through the grimy earth. Heaving with her last breaths, she clambered to her feet. Embracing the wind with open arms, she closed her eyes as the widows urgently threaded to the ground to flee the wrens.
         “EDEN,” broke from her mouth and plummeted into the murky depths. She took to the air, butterflies swirled above. I’m in Heaven.
                                                         ?          
         The two broken lovers dimpled the soft earth with their mouths open, whispering silent words they never quite spoke to one another. Autumn lay next to Eden, both of them tangled, open-eyed messes gazing vacantly through the dense fog in the direction of their abandoned cottage. The widows crept back into Autumn’s curls searching for her lonesome pulse but found nothing other than the incessant beaks of agitated wrens. Yet the butterflies insisted on entertaining their feelings, swirling above them in incalculable patterns. Their wings quivering, they brushed repetitively into the open black windows affixed deeply in the matted fur stretched over the cat’s stiff face. Autumn and Eden’s bodies pressed into the soft moss-cushion of the hill, skin softening and exposing bone that gleamed in saturating sunlight. Their fragile corpses sunk into infinite roots, gritty soil twining and braiding their fibers into the intricate veins of their gentle grassy slope, creeping towards the deserted cottage and silent rocker.
The sun shone on.
                                                         ?