Vindication

     He wants to hear her voice again and agian.  Takes a smoke.  The squeaking was horribly irritating when he was a child, he remembered.  Now the rocking chair is just a silent blur.  He took the cigarette to his mouth meticulously and stared at the saliva that had accumulated at the tip.  Smoke rose from his nostrils.  He lifted his hand and examined his palm like a fortune teller.  When he shut his eyes, he saw her slim naked figure sleeping on a tiny doll like bed.  She had long dark hair that reached her hips and slithered down her body.  Her eye lashes were black and thick.  Her smooth porcelain skin shined in the dim light of his memory.  It gave her a goddly illusion; a more angelic glamore.  He watched watches his own hand in his memory as it slides down her cheek.  A sudden pain brought him back to his shadowed reality by the burning of his hand.  His cigarette had been smoked down and was now beggining to consume his hand.  He dropped it down and saw it flicker in the dry moist ground.  In the distance he could see where land touched the sky.  The morning frost brought with it a cold chill.  Methodically, he stood and stepped on the already burnt out cigarette as i crushing the surviving part of its being.  Slow strides became his feet as he watched the horizon.  The showers over night had left an eerie feeling that could only be detected if you had lived long enough and loved hard enough.  It was strange, the way that the only sounds were those of the birds fighting over food.  The stench of the dead carcase filled the air.  He drifted off.  He was back with her; her eyes so tender and un-knowing of the hardships the world had been born into.  Light sweet clung to her neck and forhead as he caressed her every pore.  Rythmic was the steady rise of her chest as he stroked her pitch black hair away from her chest.  He levitated his hand above her breasts, closed his eyes trying capture every moment, and inhaled deeply.  His hand sailed around her body exposing every cell, every inch.  An abrupt halt was made at her hands.  The floor, a cold and hard being, sent pain to his knees as he kneeled.  But once down, he held her hand so lightly and tenderly as he kissed every part of her palm and fingers.  He inserted her fingers into his mouth slowly strocking them with his tongue.  Her breathing increased.  The scent of moist dirt filled his sense o smell.  He opened his eyes and was back in the reality he had so tried to negate.  He layed in front of a puddle of water staring at his own reflection.  He realized that he had tripped and fallen unconcious.  From his chest pocket rose another cigarette accompanied by a lighter and eventually, smoke.  The memory proceeded from where it had ended.  Those lips were rosy pink and soft to the touch but firm and delicate.  Her mouth opened slowly to reveal white little teath.  She licked them and her breathing increased once more.  He caressed her cheek again and rubbed her lips with his thumb.  In the reality, the woods overpowered his as he kept colapsing onto the  ground that dragged him where ever he was going.  He neither led nor followed his legs but was pushed.  That force of will that drove him to breath and to think and to see, drove him to this.  It was non-existant yet it was the only thing there.  With slow hand gestures, he inserted the butt of the cigarette into his mouth and inhaled passibly.  His back was flat on the ground as he gazed into the sky.  He no longer tried to stand up but layed there on the amidst the insects and the plants.  Time had passed all to quickly and the once gray sky had turned into a now morbid stale orange that darkened every second.  His mind counted time...1... His senses heard only the brustle of emptiness...2... It was getting colder and colder...3...4...5... He closed his eyes hoping for the relief of having her in his mind, his memories.  She was not there.  The darkness and weight that crushed his limbs also crushed his thoughts.  And then she was there still as beautiful.  Maybe even grander.  He saw himself kiss her lips gently.  He kissed her cheek, neck, breasts.  There was no other glory that he could feel than in that moment.  He put the back of his fingers to chest and waited...  He smiled as his fingers felt the vibration of her thumping heart.  Slowly but firmly.  He saw her eyes open slightly and stare at him.  With a quiet chill of ecstacy, he gently and quietly put his hands on the sides of her head.  With a kiss on her forhead and a wisper in her ear, he rung her neck.  Methodically, the water filled the bathtub and in went the slender godly corps.  Raindrops hit his poker face.  All the wet mud was on his clothes now; low slow crawls took over him as he had been asleep oblivious to everything.  Stumbling to stand, he remembered the lost cigarette and acknowledged his soaking cigarettes in this pocket.  Finally he stopped and stood on the edge of the cliff and stared down.  He took out his lighter, burned one of the soaked cigarettes that produced no flame or smoke, and threw the lighter into the abyss.  He put the mashed up cigarette into his mouth and stepped off.