To be Alive

She stared at the patch of snow melting into the dark rich earth of the ground. The last rays of sun made it sparkle and glimmer. It was too beautiful and too fleeting she thought, but right now it is forever. I'm forever she thought dully, forever walking slowly into the golden rays of the sun. Forever walking, seeing everything. Not thinking. The cold wind bit into her legs and made her skirt flap.

“I'm walking in a dream,” she murmured, as she meandered through an arroyo. “An Elvish pathway full of dreams maybe.”

She glanced up at the horizon where the mountains made a ribbony, silken pattern. Over them the clouds created a misty, swirling haze. She wished to be on top of those mountains, just her and the keen wind which cut into her bare legs. Just her, staring over the rest of the world where time slowed down. Then she could detach and watch the world hurry by. Why did it all hurry so she wondered? What made people hurry thither and yon in such a frantic rush? Did they see something she didn't?

She'd rather fixate on the patterns before her eyes. How that rock was nestled all lonely in one slowly melting patch of snow. Feng shui she thought, as a ray of sun hit her warming her veins. Did anyone ever stop to feel that life around them? Or was that only her?

She wandered on. She was going to wander into forever until she forgot herself. She loved how the wind bit her legs and how the sun kissed her face. She loved to feel the hum of life.

Maybe I'm the last Elvish queen alive she thought. Beautiful and graceful and tinged with sorrow she thought.

Am I living or am I a ghost passing through mists of time she wondered?

“I must be a ghost,” she intoned softly to the sun. “It is as if I stare through a veil. A golden veil that separates me, but makes the passages of time look warm and gentle.”

Could a ghost come back to the living? If only she could tear through that veil and be alive. But she was, wasn't she? She could feel herself absorbing and becoming everything around her. Everything but herself. Is that what ghosts were? People who absorbed so much around them they begin to thin out and blur?

“But I don't want to forever walk the desert alone,” she cried. “To join La Llorona and the bean sidhe on their nightly wails.”

“Why can't I be alive like everyone else? Why must I be broken to be human?”

Pain stabbed her heart, and the golden veils lifted. Yes, that was the only thing stopping her from becoming a ghost. The last rays of sun slid behind the mountain and she was left with darkness and a bitter wind. She could feel herself, very cold, in the dusk.

“To be a human is a great sacrifice,” she cried to the wind.

It carried back to her the wails of La Llorona in reply.

“Do I want to be human?” she wavered, her voice sinking into obscurity.

There was no reply. The night was dead around her, and it would not communicate with the living.