Sometimes, on the rare occasion that I am distracted from the skinless excruciation of my day to day existence; on the ever so rare occasion that Wil' slips from the bleak foreground of my thoughts, a child's laughter will bubble through the air like audible sunshine, carrying a seconds mindless joy and in its wake, a cascade of fleeting memories. A strobe of images:

Wil', radiant, tanned and beaming; fly rod in one hand, a fat glistening rainbow trout in the other.

Wil', almost transparent against the white of the hospital sheets. Bald and bruised; too weak to move.

Wil', tiny and lifeless - engulfed by the satin lining of the small white box, never to laugh again.

And my heart, which for that brief moment had expanded like a clown's balloon on a tank full of helium, contracted in my chest with indescribable pain, shrinking into a putrid, fibrillating ball of necrosis. Bile seared my throat and I steadied myself against the wall of a nearby building.

Hot tears blurred my vision and I blinked them back furiously. A passerby glanced at me, only to scurry nervously on.

Oh the ache! The sick, visceral ache! God, how I loved him. And love, like grief, is all consuming. He was my sun, my moon; my entire life. But now he is gone and I'm plunged into darkness, treading water in a frigid, tideless ocean.

I am unsure how much longer I can keep my head above the surface.

I am unsure that I even want to.