Part 3: A Goodbye is such Sweet Sorrow

There was nothing left in the city that once held his heart. The soldiers retreated, and this time for good. The orphanage lay in ruins and just beyond lay Bodhi’s family, in the enchanted sleep commonly known as death.

He never dared visit the cove, nor did he entertain the thought of walking past it, for the sight of extinguished purity was one far too mortifying. His time in the broken city had come to an end. However, the people needed him, numbers were dwindling and so he returned to the camp where he had once before witnessed, first-hand, the atrocities of war.

Bodhi trekked and trudged through the city. What felt like hours had dragged by before he heard doctors and nurses bellowing orders, attempting to control the chaos. He was tasked with comforting the patients, especially other children. This is where he met another girl of about his age. She instantly reminded him of Ekadashi and the emotions that flowed were incredibly heart wrenching for him. Throughout his journey, he had never a moment to feel the pain of losing Ekadashi and so, for the first time in a long time, he let his feelings go free. They stretched far and wide, ensnaring and bewitching every cell and matrix throughout Bodhi’s withered body.

Bodhi spent a number of days with her, meanwhile her condition slowly deteriorated. He sensed her fate was dire but chose to remain optimistic for her sake. Unlike everyone else at the camp, she was not alone and had many members of her family by her side, this Bodhi found strange. The little girl never revealed her name but did share many stories of her wonderous adventures and so Bodhi gave her the nickname ‘Wanderer’. One of them came to be the story of how she ended up in the refugee camp in bandages. She was out on one of her travels when what felt like an earthquake rippled beneath her toes and the building she was stood in front of toppled from the force of the quake. Pieces of rubble trapped her and shards of glass pierced her leg, slicing clean through an artery. She was on her way to bleeding to death when she said to have remembered her last memory being one hazed in yellow, resembling the golden hue of the setting sun. Wanderer awoke in blood-soaked bandages underneath an enormous tent, with her family at her bedside. The harder she tried to remember who saved her the brighter the yellow hue of her memory became, so she called her saviour ‘Golden Retriever’.

Another one of her tales included another boy. Wanderer described him to be slightly older than both Bodhi and herself. He wore a deep maroon hooded cloak and ankle boots. She vividly described him as an amalgamation of a modern-day Peter Pan and Little Red Riding Hood; something out of this world. Her descriptions stuck with Bodhi, they were familiar to him, and tugged onto the deepest memories that lurked within Bodhi’s mind.

The final story Wanderer left for Bodhi was a secret that was passed down the generations, so she was very careful regarding the situation in which she shared this secret. Her family knew of her carefree bubbly nature and therefore suspected that she would attempt to reveal something she wasn’t supposed to. So, in the middle of the night, she woke Bodhi and he wheelchaired her out by the river at the spot where the pure waters rippled out towards the moon kissing the twilight lit horizon. Wanderer suspected that Bodhi had recently suffered great loss and so allowed him to take a moment out to breathe in the fresh dew and to feel the crisp wind blowing through his hair. Bodhi was once again reminded of his previous life; his happy life.

Wanderer knew the end of this life was coming for her, and so wished to impart one last thing. Before sharing, she offhandedly commented that it was not to be taken for truth and that it was most likely an old wives’ tale. Whilst perfectly skipping stones, she revealed all to him and for some reason throughout it all she never once met his eye. All the members of her family have or had nine lives, like felines, and this was her penultimate life. Wanderer said that if this superstition were true then she would remember all her eight lives in her final life. Except in this final life, she would not be reborn into this family, but another, and in this she would struggle to find her one true family, that was the family curse. Only one member has ever, in her family’s entire history, been reunited. Despite saying she did not believe a word of her family’s tales she pondered for a long while over it. She wondered how lonely it would be, having known eight lifetimes of relationships, family and friendships yet having it snatched by the seeming evil likes of fate.

That night, in her sleep, she peacefully died. She never got to say goodbye to her family, but to Bodhi she did. Bodhi hoped that Ekadashi and all his family at the orphanage felt peace and died the same way as Wanderer did, without pain, for they did not deserve to suffer such a cruel fate. Bodhi requested that she be laid to rest alongside his brothers and sisters behind the gates of the orphanage. Wanderer’s family agreed for they had seen the love and compassion Bodhi had for her in her final days. What Bodhi did not realise was that he had buried his newest companion and Ekadashi side-by-side.

The risk of loving Ekadashi was also losing her, just like he lost Wanderer. But it was this intertwining love and loss that helped Bodhi heal, he never would have known how much he loved her until he let her go, but the universe interfered and instead forced her out of his life, forever. The greatest loss in Bodhi’s life was not the loved ones who he had lost, but what died inside of him as they died.

'Childhood disappeared long ago

When dreams of death began to flow

When arteries ran with molten crimson,

A soundless scream for love

A final tale of grief and sorrow

Purity and hope is all that we can borrow

After all, childhood disappeared long ago.'