The last of their summer arrived and the world and its wonders felt distant. Like warmth leaving their season’s skin to question if they were ever in the sun at all. Pink clouds that consisted barely a breath wandered carelessly towards the sea and slowly dissipated, leaving an open blue horizon cut with white jet streams from far passing planes. As they walked their hands glided across grass and flower stems, gently making a cupping movement when contact came upon petals. This field was a place held close to him, a reality of an old dream. To her it was more ideal; a place she dreamed existed and hadn’t realized it had blossomed for many seasons before she imagined it.

The field was beside a hill with an old Spanish fort built atop that looked out over the ocean and had presumably been an outpost for troops keeping watch of sea and land. The fort was in ruins, plaster broken on walls revealing stone brick. The outer wall was close to eight meters high and easy to climb in sections where it had eroded. Olive trees lined the perimeter between the fort and the field although not in a neat-planted order but a couple here and there as if olives had been thrown from the wall and took to soil in that way. The field itself was long unmaintained and nature joyfully repossessed it.

Saying nothing they instead stood looking past the olive trees and fort to the sea. The late afternoon brought a golden hue that spread itself out across the field and leaned against the fort wall like a blanket set out by the sun before evening’s arrival. By the fingertips he held her hand, not quite holding firm or letting go. She wanted him to stay longer in the field with her, but not like this. He fought with his mind. As long as he could remember he fought for her.  If life is a puzzle then maybe love is a dance and he tried to put the steps together in his mind. She saw his distraction and without speaking to it directly walked a few steps from him and picked flowers. He glanced toward her and noticed a flower tucked in her hair above her ear. Facing away from him, she looked down past the field across a small green plain and toward the hills, which seemed to grow with definition in the afternoon light. He stared back towards the sea with thoughts that stretched beyond it.

He had nothing to offer her here and she could not come with him. The field was their joy and sorrow, the convergence and breaking of desire and reality. Their field dreams cannot last. He sat in the grass. First with his arms out and eyes shut and when he opened his eyes he looked again to the sea and placed his arms around his legs his left hand on top of his right, toes pointed to the horizon.  She came and knelt behind him, her knees and feet in grass. She loved him and he loved her. The last of summer and their parting came like the split in the seasons. Leaning forward she put both arms around him, her left arm over his shoulder and her right under his arm, both hands meeting over his chest. “If you are planning on leaving, please don’t take long to do so”.