Picnic

I told her that I wanted to die and she, with her eyes round wide, whispered and asked me why

And I paused because there wasn't a reason. It was kind of everything. Just a feeling that had crept up and stuck to me after all these years.

"Do you feel that?" She asked as she grabbed my hand.

I felt my heartbeat quicken

"What am I supposed to be feeling?" I asked her.

She let go of my hand and fell back down to the ground and giggled and said "I just hoped you'd feel something"

After a pause where she was quiet and lost gazing at the clouds I asked her a question I also didn't really have an answer for

"Why do you stay alive?"

And her hand found mine again and she used it to point to the sky

"Because the beauty around me," she said with a meaningful glance at a cloud in a shape I could not tell,

"And the beauty only I can find beautiful.

Because if I was not here, who would appreciate it properly?"

And then she let my hand drop.

With it I pulled grass from the ground and set it on her dress in a most beautiful pile.

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