Wednesday, December 12, 2012

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn

The fog covered the cemetery, a dense white blanket for the graves. A hill sat in the center of the cemetery, which hosted a small wooden bench and a dead, skeletal beech tree. On the bench sat a young couple in their early twenties. They sat in silence and stared into the mists, the woman curled under the arm of the man. After a few moments, the man shifted and grimaces.

"He'd be three months now."

The woman closed her eyes and sighed. "Yeah. He'd be starting to teeth."

The couple fell into silence again. After another minute, the man sighed and pulled the woman closer.

"I put the shoes on eBay."

The woman looked up at him. "Why? Nobody'd want them."

"Someone might."

"Who needs baby shoes? They're practically new. Might as well get them from Target or something."

"People with children need them."

Silence again. They watched the fog roll by, hiding the stones and graves that dotted the park, and didn't speak. Finally, the woman scooted out from under the man's arm and stood up. Not looking at him, she said, "I'm gonna go back to the car. We need to stop by the market and get some more apples for the pie." However, the woman made no move to begin walking down the hill.

The man stood up to join her. Slowly, he reached over and took her hand. "Let's go." He began walking down the hill, but the woman stayed standing on the hillside. The man turned and looked up into the woman's eyes, which were staring off into the gray horizon. Tears were forming. "What's wrong?"

She didn't look down at him. "Why do we die? What's the point of life if its all gonna end, just like that? I mean, he didn't even live through five days outside of my womb, and now he's... He's..." She shook her head. "Gone."

The man walked back up the hill and wrapped his arms around her. "I don't know," he whispered, "But we have to get past it. He'll always be a special part of us, but we need to get past the fact he's gone. We have to get past it. Together."

It started to rain.

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