Darkened horizon. Raindrop piano keys skidded along the pavement, and the wind sang the violins melancholy- across the cityscapes and alleyways - all of which completed this midnight symphony. The velvet clouds were the onlookers of such a spectacle, and occasionally, in the company of the melody, they swayed; these subtle movements covered the luminescence of the moon - only temporarily though - for it shined bright tonight.
            A woman, middle-aged, though lines of stress and worry line her forehead, sat next to her window, drinking in this beautiful night. A cup of cold coffee, a resting cigarette, it’s tip still emitting the faintest of embers, a photograph, clutched tight in her trembling hands.
            “Volodymyr.”
            She whispered.
            And Volodymyr, her heart yearned. She bit her cheek softly, and with a quivering touch, traced the fine line of his jaw; his wonderful lips, still whole, and once pressed tight against her beating heart, healed it ever so slightly. She closed her tired eyes, savouring such an embrace because the once timeless forever had ceased, and she had fallen in love with hope without a body.
            A gulp of coffee.
            The soothing exhale of the now withered cigarette.
            And then, she was okay. Wrapped inside her own inconsolable embrace, she felt alright because Volodymyr was there. As if he never left. Despite her waterfall of crystal tears, so high was her mind from the source of temporary elation, that it wandered elsewhere. Thus, a series of snapshots, an endless series of limitless grief and broken memories:
            Paris.
            Bali.
            Kyiv.
            The sparkling Eiffel tower, where they kissed. She, her make up smeared and half done. Him, his white shirt and million-dollar smile. Then, there was the tropics of their honeymoon, that silent night, them lying side-by-side, the word at the tip of his tongue: Always. And now, the two freedom eagles returned home, a pair that soon became three, which soon became family…until three became two, until Volodymyr bid his solemn goodbyes, that tearful winter morning.
            The moon cried with her. It’s sacred shafts of streaming lights gently caressed her cheek and dappled its soothing stroke on her scrunch-up eyebrows. Suddenly, a draft of wind picked up: the Siberian wind. The incessant breeze made her hunched frame infinitesimal, but she clutched on to the photograph with dear life.
            It was her Volodymyr.
No one was going to take that from her.
The wind struggled with her, but upon finding her unwavering resistance, it ceased to blow. Thus began the speechless night. The woman rocked backwards and forwards, her body attune to her ponderous heart, head bent, arms still wrapped around Volodymyr. Her lips whispered soundless syllables, akin to that of prayer, but it moved in the shape that suggests only three possible words: I love you.
Slowly, the dense watercolours of night melted into dawn. With the artist’s exquisite touch, the orange orb cast its revered presence across the cityscapes and alleyways. Softly, it prodded her.
“Mama!” a small boy said, panic-stricken, “Wake up Mama! Please, answer!”
The woman lay there. Motionless.
Time stopped.
Time stopped for her and Volodymyr: their eternal embrace. Time looked at the boy, and back to the woman - alive, but only dead in a deep sleep - and grudgingly took a step forward.
The woman opened her eyes, those brilliant blue eyes. The boy exhaled and threw his childish arms around the neck of his mother.
Choking on his words, he managed, “Mummy…I thought you had gone away. Just like…”
He stopped himself for he felt his mother tense up. Almost instantaneously, she relaxed her stiffen posture, stroking on his pale blonde curls.
“Of course not! Silly boy, let me give you a kiss.” And thus, she kissed him, the type of fanatic kisses that would drive a boy insane; but this time, he allowed her, for he loved her ever so much.
During her kisses, the woman silently slipped the photo into the desk drawer: she didn’t want her boy to see her wretched self because a woman can only mourn at night-time.          
A time where the dead comes alive.
“Come on, let’s go to school!” The woman detached herself from her son and said with a cheerful smile. She stood up and took his small hand in hers and marched on.