by David Hewson
His fingers shook as he fumbled at the lid. Then, with a single determined movement, he tipped the urn upside down. Grey ash and dust spilled out onto the rising wind, gathered in a fleeting grey cloud then vanished, scattering across the land a lifetime of memories, an abundance of love and shared grief, gone in the blink of a disbelieving eye.
He clung tightly to the vine, watching this mortal smoke disperse. It was nothing. It was everything. It was gone. It would never leave him.
Then the breeze stiffened. The page on the table, with its five words written in a firm, elegant hand, fluttered in the wind, rose and began to tumble through the air, flitting across the arid ground, turning and turning before it disappeared into the scrub by the road.
He watched it vanish, wishing he could run again.
Nic Costa felt no wiser. Just a little stronger, perhaps, and that, in the circumstances, was as much as he could bear.
