The mist cooled my fever but did little for the ache in my knees. No matter, I pressed on. A glimmer of a rainbow taunted me across the vale, calling me in familiar, lilting melodies.

For the second time that morning, after times unnumbered over the years, I thought I heard her voice. The April wind carried her to me once more and blew her away again, capricious thing imagination. Nature seemed content to remind me of my foundling angel if only to sting me with the remembrance of her loss.

Damp invaded my trainers, though I felt no new chill. The sweater of fine wool felt heavy, thus it wound up upon a lichen speckled boulder along the way. In for a penny, in for a pound, I shed my two shirts and walked into the lower valley.

Death stalked behind the coming thunderhead. If lightning didn’t take me, the croup would. If neither, why had I to worry—in time it comes to everyone.

All dead, all dead.

As I plodded on to the rainbow my dreams, my love, my reasons for living were all dead.

All dead.