[ WP ] You just bumped into the man who killed your wife and child .

He would come. He came every year. I stood there, enjoying the solitude and the gray day. My heart was buried with these two, even though I still walked the Earth, and here I felt complete. One day a year, a full human. I stood there whole with them, waiting for him, as I did every year. He would come, as he did every year, but he would be late. Even in the gray I could tell it was past noon, as it had been every year for a while now, and still he had not arrived. But he would come, as he did every year. 
 
 He would come, as he did every year, and stand by my side here. The two of us, wordless, would stand there in the gray. I knew he had married but she would not come. He loved me too much for that and I silently thanked him for it; I loved him and was glad for his happiness but here, this day, was for us alone. 
 
 We'd stand there, as we did every year, wordless in the gray, and silently commiserate about all that brought us to this day, every year. The heady days when she and I first met, the tumult, the fire. He and I, arguing late into the night: it could be done through other means I would say, placating, reasoning. It is too late for talk, he would insist, and stub his cigarette into the mounting pile in the ashtray. We would share the memory of her gliding through the kitchen, shaking her head at us arguing, snatching the packs of cigarettes, and lecturing us on the foolishness of what we were saying. 
 
 We'd stand there, as we did every year, and try to figure out whether he had convinced me or she had convinced us, whether the movement actually belonged to him, as the history claimed, or if it actually belonged to her, as we both knew in our hearts. We would stand there, as we did every year, and my heart would shatter again as I thought of the fire in her brown eyes, of our daughter in her arms as I left with him that night, and of her parting words: `` I love you but I love you because you are brave and selfless. We will see you again, in this life or beyond, so be brave. I love you.'' He stood just outside the door and heard her say that, which is why we stand there, every year. 
 
 He will put his hand on my arm, gently, just as he did every year, and beg my forgiveness. I will try to let him know that I forgave him long ago, as he did it even, just as I do every year. He was a leader of men and I was only a thinker, a dreamer. If I gave the movement direction, it was her ideas speaking through me, and his strength that brought it to fruition. When they found them, he took the call. When I spoke to her, and she told me to be brave, he stood by me and wept bitter tears for he knew what it would mean for me. When he offered to meet all their terms and she lashed him for betraying all we had worked for, he knew what he was condemning her to. And when it happened, he pulled me to him as I broke. 
 
 When it was all over, we brought them here. He had offered to have them escorted with honors but she would have disdained that. They traveled in a simple hearse, the lights of my life in a black box, and all along the way the people lined the road with flowers. So it was here that we came, every year. 
 
 I knew he would come, as he has every year. We are both older now and he is busy with the many affairs of state, for a revolution must grow into a state. But it takes him longer to get here now, with all the affairs of state and the extra cars that must accompany such a man and the retinue of indispensable people who must be always nearby, so he is often late. He will come though, as he has every year, and we will stand here in the gray, he and I, and my heart with them in the wet earth, and all the important people will stay back with the sleek black cars, and it will be only the four of us again, as it is every year, and we will each be whole for a time.
