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Mary,
I see it all so clearly, the way it used to be. And then the way it isn't. Something's been broken, something in me or the world around me.
There's no coming back from this. Some lines, once crossed, cant be uncrossed. Like words on paper, never to return. Ink spill erasure.
I can still hear that terrible sound in my mind. The foreboding siren that took you away all those years ago. It tore through the air, and I thought it would rip the world apart, the way it ripped you from me. I don't think I could ever forget it. How could I? I do hear it sometimes, echoing in my head, stretching out like a melancholy wail through a dark, empty room.
The twisting branches sway in the cold wind, the leaves fall red and orange and yellow, and I'm still standing here on the sidewalk in front of the house, looking at the fallen pieces. How long have I been here, Mary? How long until the siren sweeps me away, too?
There is no turning back.
—Theodore
