the last time

THE LAST TIME I saw Dulcinea, it was December. It had been snowing for weeks, and even when the sky was clear, it seemed like thousands of little perfect snowflakes continued to flutter down and dance along the breeze. At night, it was the same, and I wondered if it was just the wind passing around the snow, or if it was fresh snowfall. It was cold at night, deathly cold, but I decided to go for one long walk by the lake. I needed to think about a few things.

I was over by the abandoned factory when she jumped me. When she leaped on top of me, I slid and fell. I had never been stabbed in the heart before, especially by a beautiful blonde girl with an icicle, but the icy blade found its mark. I let her cut me, and the steam of my suffering rose up into the air like ghosts. She said a few things, but I could only understand a few of them. She kept talking about how our age difference made her uncomfortable. “Such a big age difference! Such a big age difference!” I reminded her that Donald Trump’s wife was 25 years younger than him. We had a far lesser gap between us both. This didn’t seem to soften her blows. There were more. “Don’t ever write to me again!” “With you, I don’t feel like I’m free!”

I just lied back and took it, like a man, I suppose. I felt like I was having the very life pulled from my body. I curled up with my knees to my chest and I faced the forest. I remember staring at those birch trees, all covered in snow and ice. Dulcinea finally took from me what she had come for and ran off toward town. When I reached up and felt my chest, all I could feel was a bloody wound on the left. My heart was gone. She had cut out my heart! She had cut it free from my body with an icicle and ran with it into the snow. There I was, bleeding out in some kind of agony. This was really the last time. The last time I would cross paths with Dulcinea. I summoned all my strength and stood with my half-frozen aching heartless body. Then I stumbled towards the lake. The way was black and ran by the woods. I kept walking.

To where, I did not know.