April was a key month, I keep going back there in my mind, turning over the pages to view the beautiful images and taste the optimism we shared.

It was brisk that Saturday afternoon and we huddled on a bench at the edge of Boxhagener Platz while the market buzzed around us.   Mango lassi, her pressing close and the fresh spring air made it heavenly.  We laughed as birds hopped along the ground after morsels for their young and smiles adorned the faces of passers-by.

The sun was in full bloom, cutting down winter’s last fields of cold, gloomy pessimism with a blade of warmth and hope.  Though we were wrapped in scarves and gloves the promise of summer warmed our hearts.

And then the sun went away. 

Five months after that day I walked the tall, muddy grasses of an unkempt park, a small presence with me that brought a modicum of comfort, but even his light was not enough to lift the encroaching murk.

My world had become big and empty, my heart beat rattled and echoed through the vacuum in my chest; a scant reminder that I was still alive, but the colours of the leaves and flowers diminished in hue and the sound of the breeze as it gently bent the high tree tops was a discordant song with no discernible melody.

The ground was full of cast off bottle caps, pressed into the earth by lovers who had walked this place hand in hand.  Silver stars on red backgrounds made constellations in the dirt and I followed their lead as did sailors of old.  Every line took me back to the same place, a bench where once the sun had shone so fiercely and the laughter had lit a fire in our hearts, but now only reminded of the mistakes I had made – that we’d both made.

The trees offered no advice and the moon hid from my sight behind a plume of obsidian cloud that poured from my soul.  The darkest hour is just before the dawn.

And in the darkness I remained.

I awoke early, a figure at my door stunned me into disbelief.  A ghost, perhaps?  No, she was real.  I stepped outside myself and watched with joy as the movie played out.  She had returned and with her came the sun.  She is the sun, beautiful and illuminating.  I cried with delight at the happy ending, even though this was not the end.

“The ones who are bound to be your best friends must lose your trust just once to prove that they can win it back”.