Red Roses in Grand Central

Rich sweet scent of deep blood-red roses wafts towards where I stand, near the clock in the middle. The building in all it’s grandeur, majestic walls stretch into an elaborately gold laced ceiling, quietly watching the human bodies, each breathing, living, experiencing, as they weave in and out of each other. It is 5:15pm on a Friday evening, prime time for commuters catching their rides up north. The conversational chatter all around me is punctuated by train timing, track location and important safety messages booming through the building over a loudspeaker. The roses pass me by, and I smile, slightly disappointed that they are not in his hands. But I turn my head away to other distractions, tricks of the mind and the little games I play with myself. I see passersby morph into grade-school teachers, old friends from college, and lovers past. I remember smiles, words spoken, fits of laughter, falling on the floor when you’ve had too much to drink, the little moments that seem so trivial and yet so eternal at the same time. They float in my mind, images that materialize and disappear in an instant. My eyes shut, and the salty tears force themselves out of the wrinkles that are slowly embedding themselves into their corners. I can’t remember his smile, or his laugh, or our last conversation. I can’t remember my hands in his, our last kiss, and that nostalgic feeling of peace, of no interruptions or pauses. I can't remember feeling that it was forever, even though I know I did.

One moment changed our lives forever. As I sat at his deathbed, watching him cling onto the last breaths of his life, I held him, and feeling him slip away I let him go. Go with God. On 5:15pm at the clock in the middle of Grand Central Terminal, I see his form one last time, in the figures of the human traffic surrounding me. He is smiling once more, that quiet shy smile of his, and he is bringing me red roses again.

***disclaimer***
This is a work of fiction. Nobody that brought me red roses ever died (to my knowledge) and there is no truth in this story at all. I often begin writing with an image in my mind, and keep going to see where it takes me. In this case, this is where I found myself. With a women who had lost her love, and was looking to find him again in the crowded Grand Central Terminal. But it is completely fictional in story.