The date doesn't matter. The time doesn't matter. The place, things we talked about, how we felt, what we shared – none of it matters. The walks are what matter. The walks will always matter. As a distant memory they will always survive in my soul – forever a matter that matters.
I cannot remember whether we walked before or after her death. She died in April; the weather was not too cold to walk in. We would go out in the evening, come home before the light gave way into the night and disappeared. We always walked the same way – up, over, down, down, over, up – ending where we started, her house. We would walk up, over and down at a normal walking speed, but when down, over and up came, we slowed our pace. We walked as though heavy lead had entrenched our feet. Our entire presence seemed to slow down as we returned to her house. I cannot remember whether or not she had yet passed when we walked, for before and after felt the same.
There was no breeze on the nights we walked. Sometimes we wished to walk into the night, but we knew the might would only old the terror of trouble – trouble both inner and outer. We never pondered this terror in comparison to that we already felt. The inner and the outer melted into the same – for now I cannot differentiate between the two. Nor do I want to. I can see the pain in the setting as I look above the pathway of our walks. Our walks seem silent and frozen in time, yet the sound of them is expounded in my heart, in my head. The cold of loneliness creeps into the depths of all I encompass as I replay this sound in my memory. It is a sound I want to do without, yet one I cannot release. Just like the memory of the walks, the sound of a lonely silence is with me, a part of me, as will be the memory of her death. These walks, walks towards a willful, silent death, are a matter forever with me.
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The date doesn't matter. The time doesn't matter. The place, things we talked about, how we felt, what we shared – none of it matters. The walks are what matter. The walks will always matter. As a distant memory they will always survive in my soul – forever a matter that matters.
