The room was dark, save a dying candle which was set upon the table beside the bed, where a small body lay. Peace. 

The flickering light played gently on the wall that the bed was nudged up against and if you let your eyes close halfway and allowed a teardrop to blur your vision, the ghostly shapes would become a sailor on a sailboat, waving to his lady who stands on the dock, crying softly, already mourning the distance between them. Sorrow. 

The boy was not the only one in the room; there his mother sat beside his bed, weeping bitterly into her hands, no one there to comfort her, for the boy was gone, a leaf blown away from a tree by the gentle wind. Oh the gentle wind. Loneliness. 

And with a final spark, the candle’s flame went out, leaving the room in blackness, the only sounds that of the mother’s sobs. Spent.