Running across the field, arms interlocked, I'm lost in the moment. This can't be real, I think. Can life really be this perfect? We race up the hill, caring for nothing besides each other. Each step on the refreshing grass feels like eternal bliss, bursting from the ground up to the top of my being. I fall over on the ground, laughing with more vigor than I have in years. She lands right besides me, our moods more synchronized than the finest clock. Her flowing blond hair is a mess on her face, but I don't mind. Brushing it off her face, I gaze upon her gorgeous green eyes, and I melt. I don't care what my father says; I'll be happy with her. She is the woman I want to spend every waking moment with. Falling asleep, her head on my chest, I wonder how, no, IF life can get any better than this...
A coughing fit awakens me. Dynamite going off in my lungs, each cough feels like it could be the last. Every second feels like an hour, and someone cries my name attempting to calm me down. The voice sounds familiar and I know I should recognize it, but I can't place who it belongs to. Finally it ends, and I take some time to notice my surroundings. I realize the shape that gave voice to my name was her. Her hair isn't as colorful as it once was, but instead an ashen gray worn by time. Her green eyes aren't vibrant and bold like the sun of youth, but warm and luminous like the moon in its waning hours. I take in my reflection, and I see us as we once were. I remember that we're not young anymore. We're old. Old, and lying on a hospital bed, dying. Choking, my vision fades, and I glimpse into her emerald eyes one last time, and sleep.
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
... For my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
~Ulysses
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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