The chairs are gone. All the grass as far as the eye can see has gone a muted shade of green, though you only catch glimpses of that through the blanket of leaves. I smile as a neighborhood cat, mangy tabby, goes running through where the chairs once were, where life once was.

I am running, though I feel no shame in it. There is no reason to stay, no call to linger. Time is short, and the time for memory and sorrow is long past. My heart is now whole not by the grace of history but the faith of things to come.

The chairs are gone. Mulch covers the sleeping flowers, pungent and heavy. Trees wave bare branches in a feeble attempt at giving shade, but the clouds have beaten them to the punch.

They say death comes as a thief in the night, but I’ll beat him to the punch. I won’t be in; let him rob the empty bed of its lingering warmth. Time that once seemed a lengthy sentence of solitude now seems like an invitation to go, to experience, to live for the last moment. So I go. Don’t wait up.