They had never known anything else. Drawn to the darkness, the habitat was something in which they continued to find solace in; even after leaving the protectorate. They’d all grown up there, you see, underground in a vast network of labyrinthian corridors and ancient mine networks which had since been excavated. The only light they saw was that which fluoresced from the artificial suns fixated on the halls ceilings. Day to day they ran the same schedule, and coalescing with one another during free periods and meals, served twice daily; once in the morning and once again in the evening.

Miles away from some forgotten place; some nowhere land. It feels like we will possibly never return. I don’t know what to call it, it seems different here than any place I’ve ever been before. The wind blows down the lane of an abandoned country house that once stood strong on its foundations before the fires raged through. The fires burnt out eventually, leaving the city in ruins, with no fault of the people and only the fires to blame for the treachery. The clouds have seemed to scatter only every once and a while until they deposit litres of rain over the peninsula. Like the raging fires, rain pours down over the land, creating puddles and mud slides, floods, and lakes, filling up the river basins. If only I could stop the fires and hold back the rain. Maybe you are the only one who can help me hold back the rain. As you come into my view, the clouds scatter, and I realise how much I needed you. You don’t have to be on your own anymore. Maybe I don’t need to return, so long as you’re here. Deep breaths take up far more space than silence, so as the rain takes up space for love in my heart.

Centre-Val de Loire, France, 1996

I couldn’t help but glance down at the ring on my finger once again. My hand joined with his, our rings clinked together with every adjustment of his grip as we proceeded down the aisle for a second time. First ascending as two, and now descending as one. Two bodies, one heart joined together endlessly by love. And truly it was vœux de fin d’année. Vœux aux saisons d’amour.

Vernazza, Cinque Terre, Spain 1965

I was only trying to save my dignity. I had warned them not to get involved. That my father didn’t take kindly to strangers like them, certainly if he were to find out they were involved with me; which there was no question of. Though it wasn’t me my father cared for. It was his own image.

Unfortunately on their marauder around my heart and affections, they were met with my father’s brigade. When I told them I’d keep it a secret, I meant until my father found out; once he’d found out, however, i no longer was a part of the deal. I’ve seen what my father’s done; I didn’t want to be involved.

I loved them both, I truly do, but not even the strongest love could make me stand up to my father. It was hard enough in the past to explain to my father I loved one man, now let alone two.

So here I was, pushed against the window by two huge men, my father watching me in the rear view, tears flowing from my eyes endlessly. Because of me; because of the mistakes I’ve made; I’d stuck the three of us in this predicament. The car halted to a sudden stop, and I was thrown out of my seat onto the beach. i was held down into the sand, forced to watch the two men I loved. They stood down by the edge of the coast, digging their own graves it seemed as they were held at gunpoint.

I couldn’t watch anymore. The tide was rising, and soon it would swallow them. Nothing but their heads stuck up from the sand; their bodies trapped underneath, buried and chained into the depths of the earth. I pressed a kiss to each of their cheeks and with that I ran. To where I don’t know, but I had to get far away from here. I wouldn’t lose another love to my father’s relentless pursuits of power.

Paris, France 1997

I never meant for it to end this way. I loved him truly, and I’m sure he felt the same way, or he would have had I let him continue. It seems as though I let this romance die faster than I wished for it to bloom. Though I thought he could never feel the same as I did, in retrospect it seems I had been wrong. He was just about to tell me how he felt, but I walked away thinking I had no chance. What a death I died letting go of this romance, now I stand here alone in my empty flat, the melancholy sounds of the Grand Piano which he used to play on still fresh in my mind. Sipping the wine in which I had planned for us to enjoy later, I wondered; would he understand it was all a mistake? Would he give me another dance, a chance to fulfil these dreams. A chance to see that I really do love him and I didn’t mean anything I had said. Caught in between “I’m sorry I left you” and “I’m sorry I met you”

Bordeaux, France 1948

She strode a lonely summers morning to the eastern extremity of the park where she would always wait. For what exactly she never knew. She had just always felt there was someone there. Someone just like her. This morning just like all the others, a strange mist over the moors, the mourning doves low crooning, and the soft wind caressing the sweet flowers in the meadow. She had taken the same paths he had always taken, only this time had decided to cut through ‘Les Bois des Faucheurs’. Notorious in local authors stories as the typical location for a horror story and such, the woods intimidated her, though her strive for adventure broke through her fears. They extended from the edge of the meadow until the edge of the park. That border of the park where she bided her time day in and day out. Though she knew not what these woods had in store for her, she soon met what mysterious entity she had been waiting for. In summers sweet caress, by the hands of a desperate soldier she was taken. Now dancing in the meadows with her love, who had dissolved some time ago in the trenches of this Western France, where the sun never shone on the violent decimation of humankind.