"Look at me! Just look at me! - I jested holding up a bar of chocolate.

She glanced at me questioningly. She looked so fresh, so relaxed, I've not seen her looking so well for a long time.

"Look!" - I kept on clowning, breaking a segment off the bar and duly proceeded to smear it all over my face. "It is as dark as my soul and as sweet as a kiss from your lips. Come, kiss me, feel the bittersweet taste of my dark soul. You never tasted anything so sweet before"…

She looked at me. Her eyes were shining and her face lit up in a broad, amused and happy smile. She looked beautiful and as young and happy as back in those days when I was courting her and we were deeply in love.

I wanted to reach out to grab her and hug her, my heart overflowing with joy.

I closed my eyes momentarily, like the shutter of a camera, to fix that moment firmly and forever in my memory. For the first time since that fateful dawn last August I felt happy and content. I made her smile. I made her look happy, relaxed and oh, so young and beautiful… I wanted to hold on to this moment forever. I felt that there was not only a relaxed happiness in her smile, but forgiveness as well for all my sins.

Then stupidly and almost involuntarily I opened my eyes…

The pillows and the eiderdown on the bed next to mine were smooth, unruffled and undisturbed, just like they were the night before… and she was gone… just like on that fateful morning last August…

It was a dream… just a dream, but for a brief moment it felt real… so real that I could almost touch her… and for that brief and fleeting moment I felt happy and content in the knowledge that once again I could make her smile…

…and now, I feel grateful for that fleeting dream… for that smile that maybe… just maybe… transcended space, time and another dimension…

© P. J. Oszmann (January 2008)

© Illustration created in Photoshop (2008)