Afterwards (A sequel)

It is night, and the darkness is alive; alive with the million myriad sounds that are sewn into its ebony mantle, alive with the soughing shadows that forever stay out of sight. The blackness beckons to me with its siren song, seductive and beguiling, irresistible in its lure.

I step into the garden, this garden of the night, this garden of delights...and I am as one lost. The scent of the jasmine flower and the champa wraps its insidious fingers around my senses, and the sound of my pleasure is a soft sigh amid the noises of the night. I drink deeply from the cup of the fragrance, and the spell of enchantment is complete.

The steady drip of rain drops abandoned by the evening shower is a silent serenade; a stray drop a stolen kiss upon my cheek. I sway in surrender, and the scented breeze teases my skin like a lover's caress.

Down the wet stone path my feet carry me, over cool glittering blades of grass gleaming in the kind moonlight, to where the old swing stands sentinel in the darkness. I let the bittersweet memories assail me; a sense of poignancy and loss as I remember the sunshine...I close my eyes, and the night embraces me with oblivion.

The swing creaks as I lower myself onto it, the metal links cold against my fingers, the earth forgiving beneath my feet as I push off. With one hand I loosen my hair,let it spill onto my shoulders, and a zephyr gleefully starts to play hide and seek. I soar on the wings of the night, into the edges of a dream, if only I could go high enough. I tip my head back, shivering as the wind whips past and takes my breath away. Higher and faster, and higher, until my toes touch the jewelled stars in the sky, and I am almost weightless, almost there.....almost. Then the earth comes rushing back, like reality, and I am falling, falling to the ground...the swing slows, and quivers to a stop. I sit there, waiting - and let the night steal back around me on tiptoe.

The night is still dark...