Letters to love

She sat under the tree on the hill, took out the notebook and began to write. Another letter to him, about life since the last letter. Her hand flew over the paper, struggling to keep pace with her thoughts. She paused once, wondering whether he would really be interested in reading about the shade of yellow that she had painted her bedroom walls in, or the new herbs that she had planted in the kitchen window of her tiny cottage. No, he would want to know, the voice in her head assured.

She looked down at the small valley below the hill, taking in the small, colouful roofs and the winding roads. Tiny figures walked about, going to school or work, engaged in their lives completely unaware of her observant eye. We must look like that to God, she suddenly thought. Pleased with the thought, she proceeded to pen it down.

She wondered what he was doing right at that moment. He must be in his office, with his back to the huge window, shouting at some nameless minion who had displeased him. She remembered how, at the beginning, she had never heard him raise his voice. The beginning was a wonderful place. It was where they had explored these mountains together after meeting on a hiking trail by chance. It was where they had been enchanted by wildflowers, the crisp, fresh air, and each other. The idyll was perhaps even more beautiful in her memory now. She remembered his glib talent for weaving dreams, dreams of a future with a grand house by the sea, a life where there were no empty moments. It had seemed something worth leaving behind the peace of the mountains for. After all, he had already taken her heart with him to the city.

She had tried. At the job which killed a bit of her spirit every day. At making the small, airless house that they shared a home. At being alive, even a little bit. At first he hadn't noticed her struggling. He was always busy, his eyes and heart full of the city, its noises and rhythms. The crowds, the jostling, the daily struggle for survival only energized him. Unable to return his enthusiasm, she retreated into silence. The one-sided fights and remonstrations started, and became a matter of course. He could not understand her, her unhappiness with his growing success. He didn't remember the last time she had smiled. He was sure her malady could be diagnosed and cured. His inability to do so led to another round of guilt-fuelled fights.He was becoming someone else, someone she couldn't love.

So she came back to the mountains. To where she could breathe again. Where a house could be small but still filled with sweet sunshine. Where people didn't jostle because there was nowhere to rush off to. She had feared being lonely at first, which is why she started writing to him. She realized it was easier to talk to him, to love him this way. Where he was just a memory, full of youth and hope.

She finished her letter, put it in an envelope and sealed it. She got up and removed the rock in front of the small hole in the mountain's face where the other letters were kept. A lot of letters, with all the love in her heart over the last decade. After placing the newest letter there, she sealed it again with the rock before going home.

The mountains would keep her secrets, and her heart.