☆ →”Because my heart is a broken heart, I can’t let you go like this, what now?”

It’s been over a month to the day and he still sees her. He can still feel her, hear her, touch her. Just like before, like always, he revolves around her. He cries when she cries and he is silent because he knows he cannot heal her hurting heart while his own beats hollow in his chest.

They hurt as together as individuals separated by worlds.

Her face is blank. Her eyes are empty, her hands are cold.

His hands shake, his lips quiver.

But she doesn’t see him like he sees her. She doesn’t look up when he calls her name. She reaches out, and her hands fall past him - through him.

She is lost without him.

She cries tears of despair, tears that he cannot wipe, tears that fall no matter how hard he yells, no matter how much he begs. She is lost because the anchor that held her down is no longer there. She was the sun, and he was her east but now she lives engulfed in eternal darkness.

"Hold me," she whispers brokenly.

Her voice is drowned in the howl of the wind outside. Her arms are b full with the absence of his warm familiar embrace. He leans into her, his heart is bursting with longing. She feels the ghost warmth of his lips upon hers.

The house - the one they filled with memories together is spotless. She cleans everyday. She folds the immaculate sheets, drags them down the stairs and loads them into the washer. Those sheets had not been slept in for a month and yet she cleans.

It’s the only thing she knows now.

She sits still on the old mahogany table they had bought together, waiting. Just waiting.

Hoping.

It was the last thing she had done before her world had left her, and it was the only thing she could do.

"M’am, your husband did not make it. The head wound he had acquired was bleeding too severely. We tried our best,"

"No, you can’t!" She shrieks, her heart shattering.

The detergent falls onto the white marbled floor, splattering everywhere.

The house is empty. She lives in seclusion, the warmth of what used to be a home long vanished with the traces of his life. She as taken down every picture, every single item that reminded her of a love she has lost to the cruel hands of fate.

The couch where they used to lie in each others’ embrace is covered with white sheets.

The bedroom door locked tight, the key thrown somewhere in the garden.

Every photo frame with him in it she has replaced.

A house, no longer a home.

She looks up, her gaze penetrating him a thousand times. She looks at him, but she cannot see him. “Why did you leave me here?” Her voice echoes throughout the silence of the atmosphere.

She is living but she does not live. She no long eats or sleeps, her existence is unsubstantial.

"It was paradise, you and I," she whispers forlornly. He falls to his knees beside her and places his hand over hers but it slips right through.

"I never left! Look at me, I’m still here!" He cries out in agony.

"But you should," a voice says quietly, too quiet that he thinks its his own imagination.

He turns around and sees two men dressed in clean-cut suits, identical to what he had on. White pressed shirt, black tie, blazer, dress pants. Their faces are grim with the knowledge of what must be done.

"Who are you?"

"We are like you, we’ve all left someone we loved behind. We let go, now it’s time for you to do it too," one speaks. "You’ve been here too long already," the other says, nodding.

"No, I’m not leaving!" He jerks his head frantically.

"We can’t leave without you," a third person speaks, coming up from behind him. "We go together," a fourth appears.

His speech has left him, he stares ahead, not knowing what to do. “Who are you? What do you want with me?” He takes a step back as two more suit-clad men appear. “Get out of my house!”

"This isn’t where you belong, you know it in your heart. You have to come with us, we have to leave - you, have to leave," The one with the icy cold stare speaks. His voice cuts.

"Why do I have to leave?"

"Ask yourself that. You’re stopping her from moving on, she can’t live properly with you here, reminding her every five seconds of your death," the skinny one with a pocket watch in his -pocket shakes his head sadly.

"She cannot go on like this, or she will drown in her own sadness. Stop hurting the one that you love the most," the small-eyed man speaks gently.

"Come with us," the lanky one steps forward, hand extended, a small smile upon his lips. "You can save her, and yourself,"

"This place, this world, isn’t mean for people like us. We have somewhere else to go to now, we cannot stay here like this," the man with thick lips and a mohawk steps forward as well.

One by one, each of the six come forward and extend their hands in offering.

He finds himself taking a step towards the six men. They may be strangers, but he feels belonging with them. A sense of newfound affinity and a strange feeling of calmness settles upon him.

It has been long since he has felt that way.

He places his hand in the outstretched palm of the lanky man. It is warm. Something he hadn’t been able to feel for over a month now - warmth.

The tears he had not been able to shed finally spills as he takes one last look at the love of his past life.

"You have to live without me, smile without me. I love you, so I must let you go," his voice travels across the space, dimming as he disappears slowly.

She shudders when the chilled wind blows across her cheek. “I love you,”

The train is dark and the overhead gears turn noisily. The six men, strangers and brothers at the same time, sit scattered across the empty cabins, lost in their own thoughts - memories.

They don’t know where they are going, but they are certain that paradise awaits.