by D. Edward Hughes

Created on: November 22, 2009   Last Updated: December 03, 2009

The night sky had filled my imagination with thoughts of love and romantic interludes for three years. Five years prior, my divorce had been finalized in an amicable fashion, and a new chapter in my life had begun. From the beginning of this new chapter, my thoughts had been clouded by a certain loneliness, albeit, one I could not readily identify to any fair degree of satisfaction. Month followed month in a slow train of ever increasing personal dissatisfaction, and my occupation of painting suffered immeasurable setbacks. More often than not, I was drawn toward the solace of a small piece of ground just outside my bedroom window. It was here that I found a quiet peace once each evening, listening to and watching birds and breezes in the spring and summer; the snows and rains of winter.

At the onset of those last three years, I found my thoughts dominated at night before sleep came with the odd desire for companionship, or, at least, what seemed to be that desire. But with the morning light, I would chide myself for my distaste for such possibilities. Why, I would later come to ask myself, would I desire the possibility of more heartache than I seemed to already have? Each day these unwelcome thoughts came to mind and I dwelled on them more out of bewilderment and wonder than interest. I had no true want of another relationship, yet inexplicably the thoughts came to haunt me in my saddened routine of the neglect of my passion for art. The visits to my small place of tranquility came to be more and more frequent toward the end of those three miserable years, my reasoning deeper.

What had I done to deserve such an existence? I had been a faithful husband during the marriage. In time, though, the love had somehow escaped or been lost. I did not know exactly how it had happened, only that it had. Intimacy had become practically non-existent during the last two years of our marriage. I grew weary of seeing my wife trying to carry on with the responsibilities of marriage with apparently no justification, and had at last suggested the divorce option. In time she agreed. There was no great fault on either part for what had somehow transpired. The proceedings were routine and the judge ruled incompatibility as the grounds for the divorce. We had both walked away knowing we had at least tried. There were no ill feelings.

Then what had settled into my life? One day, while kicking at the grass of my little spot, I felt that I had had more than enough of these haunting

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