The simplest and most eloquent truth was that she was gone. He had spent weeks running after her, chasing invisible wisps of ghostly white that tempted his eyes as she vanished into the air. He couldn't breath for all of the truth in his lungs, he flailed, spitting and kicking, drowning in feelings without names, a wounded animal. He could not close his eyes for the fear that he would miss some little clue. He could not stop, he could not breath, he couldn't do a damn thing, and it was all his fault. And more than anything, more than the pain of her absence caused, he felt the eerie, black, fullness of confusion as he stared the truth that could not possibly be true full in the face: he had been forsaken by God, but he was more hurt because <i>she</i> was gone. It hurt more than anything to realize that he loved her, that he loved her more than God. And all he could do was drown in the sable waters, warm like blood, thrashing and calling out.
Mourning flowed and trickled from his mouth, spilling over the ground and splashing back into his eyes and he plodded in the dim haze of dawn. The sound was so rounded and full, the cry of a heathen, the call of the wild, the howl of a wolf. He could not find it in him to care anymore. The wet, gossamer fog tripped him up as he walked, filling his nostrils with a heavy dampness. He choked on every breath, every note. She was not here, and he could not even bring himself to find the words to describe the loss. He had tried, before, of course. But the harder he tried the more futile it became, trying to drain the ocean with a teacup, trying to fit borrowed clothes onto meanings that were too big or too small. He settled for just a blunt phrase, an observation of reality: she was gone. Where ever he was, she was not. Kiche was here, and Aisiling was somewhere else. And as for Pangur, well, he tried not to think about Pangur. He did not wish to come to terms with the sad truth as he stumbled and scrambled through the clotted, mesmerizing mists.
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