An oxygen tank loomed in the room's corner,
Its cold green bulk
Clashing with the tender hues
Of Celeste's paintings.
Elias sat—
Masked and tethered,
Each breath a mechanical hiss
That mocked his fading vitality.
His notebook rested on his lap,
The pen slipping from his grasp
As exhaustion claimed him
Bit by bit.
Celeste knelt at his side,
Her hand resting on his knee,
Her eyes a storm of love and fear.
"Rest," she urged,
Her voice a soothing tide.
He shook his head,
The mask distorting his defiance.
"I need to write," he insisted,
His gaze fierce,
Alive with fire
Even as his body failed.
She sighed—
Yielding to the flame she could never extinguish.
She pressed the pen into his hand,
Her touch lingering like a vow.
"Write, then," she said,
"But don't break yourself."
The words came haltingly,
Each a labor against his failing lungs.
He wrote of the sea's endless pull,
Of Celeste's unyielding presence,
Of a future he'd never touch.
And as the weeks bled into one another,
The tank's hiss became his metronome—
A relentless countdown.
Celeste's art darkened in response—
Muted tones, spectral forms.
She painted Elias
As a wraith bound by tubes,
His spirit blazing
Through his frailty.
She watched him with an aching heart,
Her brush tracing
The unraveling thread
They shared.
One evening,
As the sun sank
In a golden farewell,
Elias set down his pen.
"Take me to the sea,"
He murmured,
His voice a threadbare whisper.
She hesitated—
Dread warring with his yearning—
But nodded.
Supporting him,
The tank trailing behind,
They reached the shore.
The sand cradled their steps.
The waves offered
A gentle hymn.
Elias stood
At the water's edge.
The breeze lifted his hair.
His eyes closed
As he drank in the salt air—
A fleeting taste
Of freedom.
Celeste held his hand.
Their silence
Was a communion.
The sea sang back,
Its lullaby
A promise of rest
Amid the encroaching dark.