Evening Glory
Most people run from the darkness. I walk right into it. I
always look forward to walking around the city at night. I find solace in
wandering the city when it is bathed in bright neon lights. I welcome the
chilling night breeze with open arms. But these are not the reasons why I love
the night. I'm totally awed by its mysticism, its peculiarity, of its great
darkness and its subtle and mysterious beauty.
There's this bluff at the edge of the town where I frequent
during the witching hour. It's a half an hour hike from the old St. James' gas
station. Despite its challenging ascent, the climb is worth it. The panoramic
view of the town, adorned with its sparkling, multicolored lights, is
breathtaking. Ideally, it's a good location for the so-called "Lover's
Lane". But the steepness of the climb and the dimly lit narrow road keep
others at bay, making this spot exclusively mine.
Hours can pass as I sit in solitude, immersing myself in the
scene totally absorbed by the mysticism of the enchanted realm in front of me.
Then one night, I was dumbfounded when I found out that my
usual place was occupied by someone else.
On my sanctuary, a melancholic woman sat. Not to disturb
her, I opted for a different corner of the bluff and sat silently as I looked
at her. I studied the woman and found her intense sorrow contagious. I felt her
pain, her longing, and her helplessness.
I sat there and continued to observe her.
The view was quite enigmatic. The full moon at her back, the
gentle night breeze blowing her hair, and her solitary aura completed the
somberness of the scene. I stared at her mysterious splendor. Seeing no point
in disturbing her deep reverie, I slowly heaved myself up and started to trek
home.
As I entered my flat, I still couldn't get her out of my
head. I quickly showered, put on some fresh clothes, and dropped onto my bed.
But sleep was elusive that night. The sad image of the woman left an indelible
mark in my memory.
The next morning, I was determined to finish my work before
twilight. After proofreading endless piles of columns and articles, I looked
forward to my nighttime stroll—a ritual that helped me unwind and relax after
the neck-breaking workload. Once I had checked and rechecked everything, I
signed the huge pile off for printing. Then, I left my office and began my
stroll.
Yes, my nighttime strolling is an unconventional form of
relaxation. But as it relieves me from stress, I am totally into it.
Just walking.
I like walking past the whole street when it is in its
dreamlike state.
As I approached the bluff, I noticed that she was there
again as solitary as the night before. Slowly, I sat beside her and tried to
start a conversation.
"Hi! so you're here again. Nice view, isn't it?",
I said rather awkwardly.
I know that it's the
most stupid thing to say, but as I could not think of anything else to say at
that moment it just came out of my mouth automatically.
"Yes! It's beautiful.", she said.
Seeing that our conversation was going somewhere I
introduced myself.
"Oh, it’s quite rude of me not to introduce myself. I'm
Lance and you are?", I said rather casually.
"Meg", she said in a low voice.
"Can I sit here for a while?", I asked.
"Sure," she said.
Silence wrapped around us as we sat, watching the town
shimmer below. And every now and then, a distant meteorite flashed by.
She got up and then
bade goodbye.
"It's quite late now. I’ll go ahead.", she said
and left.
My gaze followed her and at that moment I was glad to
finally know her.
Our nighttime rendezvous did not stop there. For weeks and
weeks, we meet there, not uttering any word. We just sat down watching the town
or the star-filled heavens. And every now and then a distant meteorite flashed
by.
Then one night, under the usual hush of stars, Meg finally
broke our quiet routine. This time, she was the one who spoke first.
"Thanks, Lance", Meg said.
"What for?", I asked.
"For being here with me, on my lowest moment in life. I
know it's quite unusual for me to thank you. But your presence beside me made
my loneliness a little lighter.", she said.
I was awed by her gratitude.
"Meg, what happened to you? Why this loneliness?",
I asked.
"The day we first met here, was the day my boyfriend
died in an accident. He was about to fetch me at work, but his car crashed into
a cargo truck. There and then he died. It was devastating for me. We had been
planning to get married next year. That's why this place has been my refuge. I
couldn't bear to stay at home. He's my neighbor and seeing his house brings out
all the pain inside.", she said.
Now, I totally understood her loneliness. Why she cries here
all the time. I sat there again in silence. And every now and then a distant
meteorite flashed by. As the night
deepened, I know it was time to go. But this time, when she said goodbye, I
didn’t stay behind. I walked her all the way to her house and said goodbye
there, hoping it wouldn’t be the last.
Our little rendezvous continued and slowly I was falling in
love with Meg. There we watched the afternoon sunset. The whole town glowed
with its bright lights. And traced every constellation in the night sky. Meg
and I slowly became good friends. We now would meet at lunchtimes; and teatimes
and I would even fetch her up at the pre-school she is working at and together
we would walk to the bluff.
This time MY bluff became OUR bluff.
One night, I gathered up all my strength to ask her to be my
girlfriend. But I could see tears forming in her eyes. The loneliness she had
back then still seeps through her face.
"I want to be ready, Lance… but I'm not," she
said, eyes downcast. "Not after what I’ve been through. My heart’s still
nursing old wounds."
"Then I'll wait," I whispered, letting the frosty
breeze carry my vow beneath the silver-stained night.
The star-filled night sky seems to illuminate both of us.
And every now and then a distant meteorite flashed by.
I know that there is still hope for me. I held onto the
belief that healing and love would eventually prevail for both of us. Wrapped
in the gentle embrace of the night our strange rendezvous became the testament
of our strengthening bond. A subtle testament that love may have finally found
its way into her wounded heart.
The seasons changed. And with it, so did we.
Our shared moments became the foundation of an unspoken
understanding, a language of glances and subtle gestures that spoke volumes.
The nightly rendezvous, once marked by solitude, now resonated with a shared
warmth that defied the chilly night air.
I would often find her eyes searching the sky, not in sorrow
now—but in quiet conversation with the stars. Her voice became lighter, her
laughter more frequent. The echoes of her past sorrows, though not forgotten,
became like the gentle breeze of the night. Her eyes sparkled not with welling
tears but radiance of the resilient hope that slowly blossoms within her.
One night, beneath the familiar canopy of stars, Meg began
to unpack the weight she had long kept hidden.
"I never told you anything about Brian, right?"
she said softly.
"I don’t want to cross that line," I replied.
"But I believe that when the time is right, you’ll tell me. I know how
much you loved him… and losing him must have broken something inside you."
Her eyes met mine, shimmering with memories, and a fragile
smile curved her lips—haunted, tender, as if the name Brian had just
echoed through her soul.
“Losing him was like losing myself. We were childhood
friends. He was my neighbor since we were both in diapers. Since our younger
years, we were always together. It was either him or me visiting each other’s
house and play the whole day.”, she said as her gaze shifted to the horizon.
“He was a goofy kid, always laughing, always playing. He had
this strange fascination with bugs—beetles, grasshoppers, even those tiny
lizards that gave me the creeps,” she said with a soft chuckle. “He used to
pull harmless pranks on me, like slipping a caterpillar into my pencil case or
pretending there was a spider on my shoulder just to watch me scream and chase
him around.”
“But he was never mean about it. Right after I got mad, he’d
flash that sheepish grin and run into the field to pick the prettiest
wildflowers he could find. Then he’d offer them to me like a peace treaty,
saying something silly like, ‘Apologies, my fair maiden’,’” she added, shaking
her head fondly. “I could never stay mad at him for long.”
“As we grew older, I began to see changes in him—subtle at
first, like the way he started listening more or taking responsibility when
things went wrong. The playful boy who once scared me with bugs was becoming
someone steady, someone you could rely on,” she said, her voice soft with
memory.
“By the time we reached high school, he wasn’t just the
class clown anymore. He was the one people trusted, the one who stepped up when
others didn’t. He became our student council president, always ready to lend a
hand, always getting things done without needing the spotlight.”
She paused; eyes fixed on some distant point only she could
see. “That was when I realized… I had fallen in love with him.”
She paused for a moment, her gaze dropping to her hands,
fingers fidgeting slightly as if the words she needed might be hiding there.
“It was prom night when he showed up with this ridiculously
huge bouquet—so big it looked like it could swallow him whole,” she said, a
soft laugh escaping her. “He was red-faced, stumbling over his words, and kept
adjusting his tie like it was choking him. Then, right there under the fairy
lights, he asked me to be his girlfriend.”
She smiled, eyes shimmering with the memory. “Of course, I
said yes. How could I not? It was him. The boy who knew how to make me laugh,
who brought me wildflowers after scaring me with bugs, who had somehow become
the most dependable person I knew. My heart had already made the choice long
before he even asked.”
Her voice wavered, not from weakness, but from the quiet
battle within—an ache she was trying hard to contain. Still, she pressed on,
determined to finish the story etched so deeply into her heart.
“We had it all figured out. A huge house. Three little Kids.
He’d work at the bank, and I’d still be a well-loved preschool teacher.
Everything felt... sure.”, she said as she shifted her eyes towards me.
“And then that day came. The crash. It all vanished in a
single breath.”
She blinked, as if trying to push back the image, but her
silence spoke volumes.
That night, beneath the hush of stars and unspoken things,
Meg let her memories rise—those tender fragments of the past that wait
patiently in the silence, aching to be remembered.
It wasn’t just the stars or the quiet of the bluff—it was
everything. The nights we had spent here. The unspoken trust between us. The
stillness that never begged to be broken. I never asked her about him. I didn’t
have to. His absence lingered in the space between her words, in the way her
eyes sometimes searched the sky a little too long. Some memories don’t surface
with questions—they wait. Waiting for the right kind of silence, the right kind
of listener, to rise into the open.
I think she carried his memory like a fragile glass. Afraid
that saying his name might break something. But that night, as we sat under the
slow breath of twilight, I saw it—something in her shifted. Her heart opened,
and Brian, who had always lived quietly in her silence, became someone she
could finally speak of.
She wasn’t letting go.
She was remembering. And in her remembering, she allowed me
to remember him, too.
Because love, even the kind we lose, still deserves to be
spoken of.
And every now and then a distant meteorite flashed by.
Meg and I had built our little world slowly—brick by careful
brick. The quiet nights on the bluff turned into shared breakfasts, warm text
messages on sleepy mornings, and a hundred little rituals that made the
loneliness of her past fade like mist in the morning sun.
Each day with Meg was another crack of light let into her
heart.
She began to smile more often. Not the strained, gentle
curve of politeness or habit, but the open, crinkly-eyed kind that made my own
heart bloom just watching her. Our connection deepened as her grief grew
quieter, no longer screaming through the silence between us. And though she
hadn’t said the words, I knew we were both on the verge of something beautiful.
Something real.
But then, one night, something changed.
Meg arrived late to the bluff, her eyes wide and stormy,
cheeks flushed with something like astonishment. The night was clear, the stars
out in full parade, but her gaze was locked inward.
“I have to tell you what I saw today,” she said
breathlessly, settling beside me. “It shook me, Lance. I—I don’t even know how
to explain it.”
She looked away for a moment, gathering herself, then began.
“I was at the church this afternoon I stopped by to see a
friend working there, and there was this wedding about to start. Everything was
calm and beautiful. Guests chatting in the garden. And then I saw her.”
She paused.
“A woman in a silver and blue gown. Pretty. Poised. But she
looked... hollow. Like she was made of glass and barely holding together. I
didn’t know who she was at first, but I found out later she was the groom’s old
flame. What happened after that, Lance—it was like watching a scene from a film”
Her voice dropped into a whisper, like recounting a secret
too sacred to say aloud.
“The bride called her in. Asked to speak with her privately.
The bride wanted to give her a chance to stop the wedding if she still loved
the groom. Can you believe that?”
I stayed quiet, watching Meg as she relived the memory. Her
words came faster now.
“I didn’t hear everything, but I caught enough through the
half-open door. The bride was willing to give him up. She told the other woman
that if she still loved him, all she had to do was speak up.”
She paused, and I could almost feel the tension in her
breath.
“Do you know what she did, Lance?”
Meg turned to me then, her eyes wide, filled with wonder and something close to
sorrow.
x
“She stood. Looked straight at him for what felt like
forever. And then… she fainted. Right there. In front of everyone. It was like
the weight of all the years, the memories, the pain—everything—just broke her.”
I listened, the silence between us settling like dust.
“There was panic. People rushed to help. And the bride—she
didn’t panic. She didn’t shout. She was the one who helped the woman, held her,
brought her to a quiet room to rest.”
Meg took a breath, her voice softer now.
“Later, during the reception, the woman smiled. She acted as
if nothing had happened. But I saw it. I felt it. That kind of heartbreak
doesn’t go away with a smile.”
She turned to me, her voice trembling.
“I saw what it looks like to lose your chance. To love
someone so much and still let them go because you were too afraid to hope, too
proud to stay, too hurt to try again.”
Silence stretched between us, deep and echoing. The wind
stirred the trees around us, and a single meteor lit up the sky.
Meg reached for my hand.
“I don’t want that to be me, Lance. I don’t want to faint at
the altar of what could’ve been. I don’t want to walk away from love because
I’m scared. I’ve been holding back for so long, thinking that loving again
would mean betraying Brian. But now I see—not loving again is the true
betrayal. To him. To myself. To us.”
Her hand tightened around mine.
“I love you, Lance.”
I didn’t need to say anything. I just pulled her into my
arms while the stars turned slowly above us, and the city below shimmered like
a bed of dreams. That night, we didn’t need words.
We had love.
And everything changed after that.
She no longer flinched when I reached for her hand. She
laughed more, teased more, and began making plans—not for someday, but for now.
Our love wasn’t a sudden spark—it was a slow-burning fire, kindled through
shared pain and cautious hope. A love tempered in patience, built-in quiet
hours on a lonely bluff, one evening at a time.
And just like that, the bluff that was once mine, and then
ours, became something more. It became sacred ground. Where loneliness once sat
with sorrow, joy now stood in its place—quiet, steady, and real.
We sat in silence, hand in hand, our eyes drifting toward
the town below. The church, nestled among rooftops and swaying trees, was
barely visible from this height, its soft amber lights flickering like candle
flames in the dark.
“That’s where it happened, isn’t it?” I asked quietly,
nodding toward it.
Meg followed my gaze, her expression softening into
something wistful.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “Right there.”
I hesitated. “Meg... what do you think was going through her
mind? The woman who fainted?”
She drew in a breath, her eyes still fixed on that small
glowing silhouette below.
“She was fighting herself,” she said. “Holding onto a love
she thought was over but still lived somewhere deep in her. She tried to be
brave. To let him go, even when every part of her wanted to reach for him. But
she couldn’t bear the weight of it. The grief. The hope. The what-ifs.”
Meg paused; her voice steady but quiet.
“She wanted to fight for him. Her heart surged forward,
ready to speak, to claim even the smallest sliver of hope. But then she saw the
way he looked at the bride—steady, certain, full of quiet love. And just like
that, the words dissolved on her tongue. She knew. There was nothing left to
fight for. So, she let go, not because she didn’t love him, but because she
loved him enough to step back.”
A breeze passed between us, soft and cool. Below, the town
lights flickered like distant stars, echoing the constellations above us.
Meg turned to me then, her voice barely above a whisper.
“She fainted, Lance. But it wasn’t weakness. It was
surrender. A heart giving in—not just to love, but to letting go.”
I nodded, her words sinking deep.
We sat together in that quiet understanding, our fingers
interlaced like two souls no longer afraid to hold on. We didn’t speak again.
We didn’t need to.
Our love blossomed—not like the dramatic sunrise that
overtakes the sky with fire and gold.
But like the soft, slow, steadfast glow of the night.
And every now and then, a distant meteorite passed by, reminding us that even in stillness, there is wonder. The stars, like quiet sentinels, lingered a little longer—reluctant to leave, but ready to pass the sky to the sun.
And there—peeping at the horizon—the road led to a new morning.
Not loud.
Not grand.
But certain.
The kind of morning that doesn’t come with fanfare, but with quiet assurance. The kind that unfolds slowly, like love built over seasons, like wounds that have finally begun to close.
A soft promise that what has ended gives way to what begins. That even after loss, life blooms again.
Like an Evening Glory.
