I turn back with an averted gaze. I can’t form words, there are no words. No words, the depth of the loss is too deep, the mask of control she wears flickers for a second – the wound is raw and still bloody, she moves towards me,

‘I remember Max, I remember it, I know, I know what happened.’

 She knows it, she has it, the missing piece of me – the blackness revealed to her, that which I must have, I have to know.

I ask her over and over and the tears spring in her eyes, she tries again to speak but again what words could say it, she can’t bring those things, those events into the reality we now have.

‘Can we meet again? Can we talk…?’ I don’t know how to finish, but the question hangs pregnant in the air.

She looks at me and tears roll down those cheeks, I touched those cheeks, I kissed them, held them and whispered love against them. My hand reaches, shaking, touching a single tear away.

‘Please, please, Mary – please see me again, please I must know…’

She nods and slips something inside the leather of the cover of the book and nods her head one more time. She brushes past me and she is away before I can call after her. The world is a daze again, I wander back towards Jack stood patiently as always. He mouths some sounds and words none of which I hear. He calls after me and I wait, my head rolls back and stares at the cold brittle blue sky. I hear a scream, an owl’s shriek and the sky turns black again.

The sky was so black that night, I was crying, wandering and weaving over the road. She had said no, she had turned me away and said no, I was so cold that night. So cold and the tears made it harder to see, the sky was full of the hunt, sounds and rushing winds. All was blackness…

The sky was blue again and Jack was stood above me, he helped me back to my feet and passed me the black book that had dropped onto the grass. We left, and the white oblong on the grass fluttered in the breeze and the owls called once more.

The night was dark and my dreams dark and viscous rain, thick as treacle. Blood was spilled that night in my dreams and the owl’s shriek woke me.

The next morning was another in the routine, routine was important said the doctors. I and Jack walked back to the park enjoying the last traces of the autumn sunshine. The park was quiet, with merely a few traces of laughter carried on the breeze.

All was sunshine and light, and yet, and yet there was something wrong. There was something wrong, something was gone. It was too quiet, rubbish scattered over the path and today’s newspaper stuck to my legs by a gust of wind.

It was too quiet.

I passed the oaks and the silence was deafening me, there was no noise, even our conversation became muted. Then I knew it, they were gone. The owls were gone, no shrieks and no great slow eyes watching. They were gone and the silence they had left was oppressive.

The wind grew ever insistent and I and Jack began to turn back, we passed the paper laying spread-eagled on the ground and as I passed I picked it up and dropped into the bin. From the remains of the rubbish a somewhat familiar face stared at me. Did I know that face, now mourned and lost to twisted metal and sudden stillness? My book was in my hand and I searched the photographs, and that familiar face was absent and so we left together.

The wind was cold and the owls were gone.