I was fast asleep and dreaming. Dreaming of the school day, the arguments I had to pretend I didn’t hear, him, and… this. What had now solidly come to be in my mind was beautiful. It came to me abruptly, suddenly, but softly. It was absolutely breathtaking and a symbol of infinite importance in anyone’s life. A symbol of eternal and true love: an aisle. Around the walkway, which resembled a path on which freshly iced snow had lightly fallen, there were Corinthian columns towering over me. Vines with delicate flowers and grass-green leaves had grown into the columns, floating upwards with their overwhelming height which integrated itself into the baby blue sky. The light overhead was almost blinding- the color of bright yellow sunlight with a more predominant white. I wasn’t sure if innocence could be described as a color but if it could this would be its definition. Birds, beautiful, graceful birds, landed around me and flew up until the freeing light had shrouded them. The tunes that came from their soft beaks were the kind that filled you with lighthearted jealousy at not being able to produce such calming and heart-felt tunes as these. Directly ahead of me was a waterfall such as I’d never seen before. It was natural but there was something artificial and human about it. You couldn’t see where it was falling, it just did and the aisle I was walking down led right to it so I wouldn’t fall down some abyss but reach out and graze it. The falling water, though it appeared misty and gentle, kept an ominous roar that threatened to crush anyone should they get close enough.

As for me, I had no idea what I looked like. It never occurred to me to look down, just at the ensuing paradise surrounding me.

I was almost there, too. Almost at the waterfall which would surely and mercilessly enable me to forget about the sometimes crushing days I had when it appeared. It was a black crow and although it was just a bird, I couldn’t deny the air of darkness that cam with it. It wasn’t just that it didn’t fit in with the rainbow of light, peaceful tones; his midnight blue feathers accented his black-pebbled eyes. That was only one part of it. There was also its confidence that it had the power, now that it had arrived, to ruin this. To ruin everything I had just described. The blooming flowers, the breath-taking waterfall, and the innocent light filling this other world. It felt as if, at his command, the Sun would slowly shatter into a perpetual puzzle I could never put back, the flowers would shrivel up into minute particles of dust that would bind themselves to each and every aspect of the Earth, and the waterfall would simply… disappear. The light wouldn’t be there to illuminate it, to selflessly guide my way to it, and I would never reach it. All because of an animal one-fifth my size, but fifty-nine times more condensed with a black, destructive, gruesome soul than I could ever have.

All this beauty that had appeared so easily, as if it was destined to this whole time, would heartbreakingly disappear as fast as it had come. As if I hadn’t been worthy of seeing it in the first place, never should have, and he would destroy it just because I had.

This he did. How, I could never describe because it was so horrifying, grim, and shocking that even if I had time to understand what had happened, I’d have chosen not to. Literally, with a brisk movement of his wings, he was off into the air soaring with great stoicism and respected confidence. At his movement, the involuntary smile I had on my face disappeared, and so did the splendid oasis I had the honor of seeing. The waterfall became so bland it blended into the white luminescence from overhead so there was no trace that such a breath-taking structure had ever existed. The flowers, the beautifully aromatic and eye-catching flowers, quickly lost their cheerful colors and bright shade only to leave a brownish, dark dust behind. The grand columns stood no chance. In a mere second, their awing elegance and historic marks were smashed to pieces around me. Surprisingly, I wasn’t crushed to death by the physical disasters ensuing me. Nothing hit me or got in my way. It was like I was something below even air so that I could only watch in horror and not experience the disaster along with everything else.

Then it hit me. This was what he wanted. To emotionally, not physically, wear me away, cut me down, and abolish me from this place. At that fleeting moment of realization, an overbearing and powerful feeling of complete sadness smothered me against the ground. Never had I experienced such grim, deadly, depressing, crushing feelings as these. It was over, I knew. The blinding light that once encircled me transformed into pitch black darkness that went beyond my eyes to my soul so that by this time it probably looked like a charred and blackened piece of meaningless coal. Hot, dark coal that would soon cool off and disintegrate into minute pieces of dust when that first whiff of heartwarming summer air gently ran over it.

How I longed to have the uplifting light back! To destroy the black bird which had crushed all positive thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in me. Whatever happened to the eternal symbol of true love which had shone so brightly just seconds past? Would it, in the end, be there to save the day, the world, or at least me? I had always heard relatives speak so highly of it, but when you were in a situation where your future, or just the following day, looked as black as the darkness staring me in the face now, how was it that you could still have faith in such an elusive feeling? Sure it completed you when you had the right form of it in your heart and blood stream, but when you didn’t it just broke you down more than any other thing in the world. It wore away at your heart and you felt the ever-increasing gnawing in the pit of your chest until one of two things happened: that love gingerly crept out of the shadows and steadily began to light your heart, or it was too late. One’s patience, hope, and necessary belief in it ran out before it could complete its journey and reach him. That person let himself be swallowed by the darkness that overwhelmed him, much like the black bird’s darkness was now ensuing me. Choking me. Trying with all its might to abolish my beliefs in love and surrender to its dark, depressive atmosphere.

To even think that I would surrender to this dark empire brought a surprising feeling of refusal and revolt of me. I wouldn’t give up. As depressing as my current situation was, I wasn’t just about to miss out on the best thing in my life just because I couldn’t live with the black bird for several more weeks. Maybe it would be months. Hopefully not years. Yet I knew that when love came, when I was finally lucky enough to face it head on, I would forget about everything negative that eve came before it because why would I linger on the depressing past when I had paradise right in front of me? Mine, forever.

I would be surrounded by so much love and caring by that one person meant for me and me only that I would never have a reason to remember the past, with its periods of shocking hurt and gloomy intervals. Love would overpower it. It always did. When you felt appreciated, needed, and cherished by someone that much, dark memories like mine were forgotten and lost in the past where they belonged.

As I thought about all this, I touched my eyes with my hands and felt a light, wet lake overflow my eyes and run down my cheeks. The intense absence of light, the darkness that had brought about all these thoughts, was so intense that my eyes’ only defense left was tears. Never would I surrender to this one feeling that had an unbelievable crushing power but could be crushed itself. There were others before me and there would be others after me that would be placed in the same exact position I was in now and surrender. I, however, would keep fighting for that one person that would easily shine through this darkness with just a smile. He’d enable me to live my life as I never had before, complete it, and never, ever leave it. To give up now would be selfish of me and I’d accomplish nothing. Yet if I could just bare it a few seconds more, I’d live through it and come our stronger, braver, and ready for love, ready for him, ready to start a whole new version of life itself. The past forgotten; life and love ahead.

With those thoughts in mind, I did the unthinkable and potentially dangerous- I opened my eyes. I would surely lose my sight if the blinding darkness was still there, but when I gingerly opened my trembling eyelids I was greeted with bright, heavenly light. It was everywhere and was now illuminating the striking male figure walking towards me. Once he was close enough I knew it was him. I was so ready to know him, talk to him, and fall in love with him. To fall in love with you.