And as he waits on the spire of the human soul,

End watches.

 

A woman stands outside and stares

across the rugged buildings to the early sunset. It’s a lot of blue

covered over with whispy clouds,

a thin orange vanilla line dusting the far-off scenery.

 

Her husband – or perhaps, a boyfriend – stumbles,

not in intoxication, but in irrational anger,

 from the door of a muddy house across the street. He shouts

at her, but she can’t hear him.

 

She is lost in the beauty of a creature

so far away and so unreachable. Tears

turn in her eyes, brimming her weary eyelids. The man who lives

 

in that house across the street marches toward her,

but her back is turned, and she refuses to see or hear anything but the passing beauty

of her last sunset.

A smile,

 

soft, sad, wide and small, thick and thin,

beautiful and nasty passes across her lips,

because she knows.

She has known all along, and now the only one she will share her secret with

 

 is the End.

 

The man takes her arm,

 his grubby fingers digging into her bare skin, and he yanks her

away from the tiny and

overwhelming beauty of a God-given gift.

 

 

And as he waits on the spire of the human soul,

End watches.