To Find Love

     The midnight air was a bitter windless chill, stiff with the remnants of the storm that raged earlier that day.  I woke up that morning to rolls of thunder and good songs on the radio.  I looked out the window at the gray sky, and in the distance where the sun should have been, I saw an ink-spill of a cloud slowly moving in.  As the day progressed a light sprinkle and breeze turned into the most savage tempest I had ever witnessed.  The thunder was a continuous low rumble, but at times there were peals so loud that they shook the house.  I looked out and saw the wind tear at trees and blow the rain almost completely sideways.  The city was blacked out, and no one was risking driving so all was in complete darkness until the lightning displayed itself wide across the sky illuminating everything.  I had lit a few candles, but once I looked out the front door the first time I was entranced by the terrible, beautiful storm.  I was astounded by hearing the rain, but not seeing anything.  Then the lightning would strike, and for that moment, every drop was a wet glow falling into a glowing ocean.  It was beautiful.

     My trance was broken when during a display I thought I saw a figure standing in the street before me, staring.  There was a darkness again until the next flash of lightning when I saw that it was a person dressed in a long, black coat open to reveal black clothes beneath.  I could not tell if it was a male or a female, but it stood straight with its hands in its coat pockets and its head lowered.  Wet hair almost covered the eyes, but I could tell they were looking at me.  Everything went dark again, and I waited eagerly for the next flash, but when it came the figure was gone.  I watched the rest of the storm and thought about the figure, wondering why anyone would be standing in such weather and why that someone would just stand and stare at me.  I wondered also what the cemetery looked like during a storm like this.  I had spent many nights in the cemetery enjoying the silence, engraving into my mind the image of the landscape of moonlit headstones, and thinking about all the fears and grim thoughts that people often attribute to graveyards.  I have never found the cemetery frightening, I always found it too sacred and mysterious to be frightening.  Of all the images I carried of the place in peace, I wondered how it looked while subject to these torrents.

     I closed my eyes and imagined myself in the graveyard, standing where I had many times before in front of my favorite headstone.  It was my favorite because even though the stone did not seem so old, the name and the dates of birth and death were as if rubbed away to the point where I could not make them out.  There was an epitaph that was worn as well except for the last word which read "LONELINESS".  Below the epitaph was an engraved picture of a face that appeared to be female.  A single curved line made up the forehead, nose, lips, and chin.  The features faced to the left, and at the right was an eye which bore a single tear.  I imagined myself in front of the stone looking across seeing only by the grace of lightning, rain beating against the granite and the ground, soaking deep to the coffins beneath, the wind like the dead howling in anger at the crashing thunder that disturbed their peace.  Then I imagined the dark figure standing before me in the distance.  It stood during one flash, then knelt during the next, and was running its fingers across the front of a headstone during the next.  Then came the next flash, but the figure was gone.  I opened my eyes wondering what it meant.

     As the storm calmed and then stopped, I stepped outside to look at the sky.  The thick, black cloud remained covering the stars, but a hole opened on front of the moon allowing it to shine through fuller and bigger and brighter than I had ever seen before, lighting the place almost as well as any street lamp ever had.  The wind had died to nothing and all was silent except for the dripping of rainwater.  There were still no cars out and no dogs were barking, and except for the cold, it was a magnificent night, but in a way the cold added to the beauty.  I decided that I had to go to the cemetery.  I had to see what it looked like.  It could not be anything but beautiful, and I wanted to be there to add to my collection of images.

     I went back into the house to change clothes.  On a night like this, I would not think of wearing any other color but black; no other color would be appropriate.  I put on my black clothes and pulled on my black leather jacket and walked to the cemetery.  On my way I saw no one, the streets were empty and the houses were dark, and I heard nothing but the rainwater drops and my own footfalls.  Everything was at peace.

     I stepped just inside the cemetery entrance and stood looking over the carpet of grass laying under the weight of rain that glowed in the moonlight.  Each headstone glistened as they spotted the sea with their own faint shadows.  I was lost in astonishment until I noticed the darkened trail before me leading from the entrance and into the graveyard turning and disappearing among the many headstones.  Someone had walked through the cemetery since the rain had stopped.  I felt that the only one it could be was the figure I had seen earlier.  I followed the dark trail into the depths of the cemetery, paying no mind to where I was or weather or not I was going through a part I had never been before.  I stopped when before me I saw a person standing back to me in a long, black coat.  I stood quietly and watched as the figure knelt before a headstone.  After a moment I slowly walked to the figure and peered over the shoulder as the person ran their fingers across the front of the stone.  The figure's shadow was cast across preventing me from reading any engraved names or dates.

     "Hello," I said quietly.

     The hand withdrew slowly and I heard, "Hello," returned in a soft female voice.  She put her hands in her coat pockets as she raised, still looking down at the stone.  "I've waited a long time for you."

     I did not understand.  How could she have been waiting for me?  How could she have known that I was going to go there that night?  "Excuse me?"

     She turned to me, her head still down, and said, "I've been waiting a long time here for you."  She lifted her face into the moonlight and looked into my eyes.  She was beautiful.  Her eyes were dark and full beneath her thick, black eyebrows.  Her jet-black hair gave the appearance of almost being stiff as it hung stylessly from her head to just below the nape of her neck in the back and to her eyebrows in the front.  Though combed back probably with just her hand, a few wisps hung over her forehead.  Her sad face was smooth and gentle and glowed softly in the moonlight.  And on her left cheek a single tear glistened.

     "And now you're here."  Then the tear rolled slowly down her cheek leaving a thin, shining trail as it made its way to the corner of her mouth, then disappeared along the line where her full lips met.  She took her hands out of her pockets and drew closer wrapping her arms around me.  She closed her eyes and as her lips touched mine, my own eyes closed involuntarily.  I felt the whole of the universe in my head like black velvet wings taking flight.  I wrapped my arms around her tight and felt every love I had ever known and wanted to know.  Far behind my eyes I saw swimming images of rain and lightning and gravestones and wet grass, swirling sounds of thunder and raindrops and every song I ever loved joining in blissful chaos that rolled smoothly into a single image of the two of us standing in each other's arms kissing, and as the image rushed toward me it flew through my eyes.  They opened as our lips parted.  I looked into her eyes and tasted her warm salty tear on the back of my lips, and as I swallowed the flavor the air seemed to lose its chill.

     She came to my side revealing the headstone before which she had knelt, and with one hand on my shoulder she looked from me to the stone.  I knelt and gazed entranced as the moonlight reflected brightly off the granite, casting each graven letter and number in its own shadow.  I read my name, my date of birth, and that day's date.  I stared for a moment feeling the rain soaking cold into the knees of my pants.  I then looked to the epitaph below.  It read, "THOSE WHO WAIT FOR LOVE WILL FIND IT".  I thought about the phrase for a moment, then felt her hand squeeze my shoulder.  I looked up at her and for the first time saw a delicate smile on her face.  I returned the smile realizing that I have waited long for love and now I have found it.

     I stood and we hugged once again before making our way through the graveyard.  As we came upon my favorite headstone, we both knelt and gazed.  Some of the words had returned as if they had been freshly cut.  The first name and the epitaph were now clear.  It read, "RAVEN" and "TO FIND TRUE LOVE, YOU MUST FIRST FIND LONELINESS".  I then looked down at the engraved face and saw that the tear had disappeared.