Cold.  Darkness.  A howling wind tore through the haggard treetops, breaking off branches and sending them hurtling to the ground with tremendous crashes.  Rain beat down on the world from the ominous clouds that shrouded everything in darkness.  The black lake heaved uneasily, tormented by the unrelenting, remorseless weather.  Occasional bolts of lightning perforated the writhing dark mass of the sky, casting brief flickering lights over the bleak landscape, casting eerie shadows and illuminating a small figure.

The person was moving hastily toward a dilapidated cottage nestled under the ghostly trees.  No light came from the cracked windows, no sound came from beneath the broken roof, but as the lightning returned to the heavens and darkness once again enfolded everything, something moved in the cottage.  Something moved, out of sight, out of knowledge and out of hearing of all living beings.

A restless consciousness resided in the cottage; a bitter entity, filled with hatred and sorrow.  It sat in the darkness, hidden within the body of a man.  His wife had been away again: away for too long.  He was sure that she had found love with another man; a richer man, not a poor woodcutter like himself.  He would not allow it to continue.  He would not lose his wife.  She had loved him once, and that love had been perfect.  Money hadn’t mattered when all they had was each other.

Everything changed when she got a job in the local village; she always seemed to distance herself from him, and acted awkwardly.  He wasn’t sure if she still loved him like she once had.  She stayed in the village for days at a time now; all he could do in her absence was wallow in self-pity, swathed in the darkness of the cottage.  He didn’t know how he would be able to cope if she left him.  If a hole was torn through his heart, he did not know what he would do, or how he would bear the loss.  Her love was everything to him.  The air he breathed, the stars he prayed to, the life he lived.  She was love. 

Her love for him was greater than the force of her life, of that he was sure.  It had the strength to persevere through death without losing any of its potency.  If only that love were his again.  If only he could bathe in her tender gaze once more.