donna

'Tap, tap, tap.'

I said I'd meet him here at ten, Dr. Robert.

Creeping down the street, hand in pocket, clutching the notes. 

'Tap, tap, tap.'

I pass by the graveyard wall and reach out a finger. 'Donna'. I trace her name carved in the cap-stone beneath the chestnut tree. Donna, long lost Donna buried deep beneath the leaves and debris. Donna, gone.

A pink sandstone switch-blade cut. 'Donna'.

'Tap, tap, tap'

Dr. Robert is coming for me. I wait beside the gate and remember the summer-smiling Donna in moist, ripe cheese-cloth. I reach out and trace our kisses in the fallen leaves.

'Tap, tap, tap'

And he's here.

A metallic click as Dr. Robert opens the Gladstone. He hands me the phial, I hand him the notes. He disappears silently into darkness. I will follow shortly.

Donna, dear Donna. We cut your name with the sharpened knife and fall into dewy grass. You play hard to get as we tumble over and over between the tomb-stones.

I crack open the phial.

And the world explodes, raising up the graves and the filigree tumbled stone-work and the thick bark stripped back to bare wisps of Donna amongst the maiden leaves and the open blade.

You carve your name indelibly into my blind eyes. And I carve you too. Deeply.

The light flashes and sparks. For one brief moment I can see. A rush of dead blanched tomb-stones as 'tap, tap, tap,' my past and my present and my future embrace before me and your name is carved indelibly across this silent graveyard.

It is the last thing I will ever see. 

I drop the emptied phial and cast aside my white stick.

I lie beside you as the darkness closes in. We are together now, Donna. Forever.