By the river's edge, she stood.

Spellbound as it danced and beckoned.

The ancient waters enticing. Ever running with tide and time.

Pulling. Whispering.
 

Come.
 

She stepped gently, feeling the current’s caress.

Cool fingers tugging, teasing.

For a moment—just a moment—an echo of a smile flickered.
 

Almost.
 

Toes anchored deep into silt and sand, tethering her to earth’s sorrowful embrace.

The tears, long dried, etched their remnants upon her youthful visage. Their sorrowful traces carved rivulets along yellow mustard paste.
 

She was spent, emptied of all hope and life, yet the weight of sorrow lingered, an unyielding shadow that gripped her soul. This darkness that consumed her, knew not how to relent.
 

Come.

His image rippled across the water's surface, the familiar smile, unchanged, warm, eternal.

It had always been so. A smile that never faded. A smile of kindness.

A smile of love that captivated, ensnared and never released.

The crops could fail, and the meals may be meagre, but the smile always remained, and he would hold her…
 

Gently.
 

Then one day the smile was gone.

And she was alone.

Just her and the child.

So beautiful. So gentle. A mirror of his father.
 

Another tear escaped, slow and silent.

One final tear for her cherished?

Perhaps for her child.

Perhaps for herself.
 

Her arms felt light, her breasts burdened and sore.

Time to feed. No more. No more.

Her gaze fixed on the pagoda, its gilded spire loomed, glinting in heavenly, indifferent light.

A distant wail, her baby's plaintive cry - calling, needing, faint and hungry.

Her body ached in response.

Milk dampened her blouse.

Warm and wasted.
 

A shudder. A sob. Caught before it could consume her.

“We must keep him with us.” The old monks had decreed.

“He is chosen. He is special.”

But she already knew this. The boy, born of her lost love.

She pleaded with them not to take him; she couldn't bear it.

But her tears held no weight for these guardians of Buddha.

She was but a vessel.

Delivering them divinity.

A child for whom they could project their hopes.
 

No hope for her though.

No hope at all.
 

She looked to the night sky. Speckled and flickering.

Laughing and mocking the mortals below.

Was this how they were created?

Shining shards of fractured hearts, cast skyward?

Her own had been splintered when she lost her beloved.

Then shattered, when they took her child.

No fragments left to mend, just stardust adrift belonging to the heavens.

May my son find his way, guided by their light.
 

Come.
 

She took another step and felt the cool rush on her bare knees.

Then her waist.

Then her chest.

She couldn’t swim.

She didn’t need to.

Her beloved was waiting.

Soon she would see his smile again.

And he would hold her…
 

Gently.