We walked the whole time. We didn't dare utter a word. We didn't know what to say. But then again, what is there to say when you know that The End is here -- here, right in front of you -- with its jaws laid open, sweet breath oozing from the crevices of its decaying teeth, a yawn which will inevitably swallow up everything that you care about mercilessly, and chew it and regurgitate it into another meaningless memory, random snippets of two people's lives upon which they will reflect in later years, the corner of their mouths lifting with a faint suggestion of reminiscence.

      How could it be that this sky that we were standing under, a faded canvas of indigo, cobalt, persian and zaffre, distilled with dropplets of azure and pink, how could it be that these tree branches, grown brittle with the cold, crooked silhouettes against the sky, how could it be that in just a few years time this would be nothing more than a fond memory?

      How could it be that this yawning feeling of emptiness and desperate attachment, how could it be that after all that we had been through, it would be discarded a short while later, labeled with cute terms such as "the good old days", and "young love"?

      It was never good. It was never cute. It was never young. It was passionate, it was sore, it was old -- it was a dying blind man's vein-encrusted knuckles trembling, grasping at the air for something hopeless, for mist, for something which simply wasn't there.

      It was the soft snowflakes which rested lightly on your hair, as I tenderly brushed a strand of it away from your eyes. It was the lack of sparkle in your face, these two deep pools of hollowness staring back at me, these two pink lips which were colder than I could ever have imagined, chapped and crackling and dried of any warmth which they had once contained.

      It was the drained exhaustion of our half-sincere smiles, it was the way that you tried to make it better by pointing out that at least it wasn't raining. It was the sudden realization that this was the last time that we were ever going to see each other. It was the anger, the fear and the hoelessness which stabbed at my heart. It was love. It was real.

      "Shall we go home now?" you asked, and I nodded, pushing my hands down into my pockets. We walked.