House of Loneliness

Old maple trees stood tall, yet embowed. Above the cemetery ground, they came together pensively to provide a roof for the forever homeless. The valley was often cloudy and so the rain frequently pillaged their haven but then, when it was over, dews slipped off the leaves of the maple trees to quench the thirst of the intolerably thirsty; tapping on their doors over and over to relieve them of their infinite loneliness.

As much as the maples tried, nothing grew again in the land. There was not a step where you wouldn't hear the crunching sound of the fallen leaves, only your feet got wet. Torn-black-cloth was everywhere. People, having completed the burden of leaving someone out of their lives forever, left hurriedly, abandoning nothing and everything.

The leaves! The leaves again! Their yellowish-grey color buried even the graves. Only tombstones rose high and others just faded. From the distant forest the hum of a chainsaw flew about and tied, perhaps converged, the harsh realities, and how in sync it was!

From a corner, something pushed the dullness away and sharply stood out; a freshly cut red rose. Above a grave where fresh dust covered a man's sorrows in solidarity, sat a delicate rose; red with no barbs only tenderness. No amount of silly dews could invite him outside his cage. He contemplated, with his evermore decaying mind, the loss of each moment as the next one arrives and that suddenly the last moment takes an unexpected turn towards eternity.

The past nothing but a memory and the future interrupted, only the house of loneliness entertained him and a rose that sat so close and yet he couldn't reach it. Just a few houses away, a fair girl sat with a rueful heart, crying over a distant memory.