Wood bears her; a visitor; inflammable sorrow

He finally understood what was happening. For hours, he had sat, her sleeping with her head in his lap, the once proud inferno of that night’s bonfire reduced before them into pulsating coals, and wondered at the great sadness and release that had washed over him in waves, tearing at his soul. The sky, at times, would open, great tongues of blue stickiness washing the land, licking at the fringes of his consciousness, a sea of young, pale faces stretching out behind him, just out of reach of the fire.

Some nights earlier, he had awoken with a start, to find a young boy sporting a riotous plume of black carbonfiber strands as hair, too-short, gnarled legs kicking gently in the air atop a stack of blankets at the foot of the bed, and he had called to him. What was he doing here? he had asked, why had he come? and would he not just saying something?
The boy had stopped kicking, and a line of fear had drawn itself jaggedly through his befuddled mind, as the black plume stopped its slight swaying to the rhythm of the boyish action, and he felt a ancient, cold energy flow toward him, the small figure directing his attention, if not his eyes, at him in the dark. Better to turn on the light, he thought, find out what the little bastard wants. Without taking his eyes off the figure, he flipped the switch.
Nothing. A motorcycle crash jacket mostly covering a battered black helmet, both skewing righteously, bearing great potential and endless stories of their own, to the right off of the pile of blankets.

At first, hearing the soft squeals of longing wafting into his subconscious, he had started to protest, but stopped, and watched as she had thrown into the bonfire a small, brown bedside table, and shuddered as the wood of the piece released its pent up mourning.
Visions of an old woman slowly fading away toward death, years and immense Time settling onto his emotional plane, had drifted across his inner vision, filling him with a melancholy sorrow that stretched to his very toes. The small, brown bedside table had soaked up and was now releasing, with a final great wave, strong impressions of the last days of Her life, pain beyond morphine’s sweet embrace, telomers frayed, the agony of cells collapsing while others multiplied her organs into each other, an end he instantly knew he would find himself one day, someday, any day, tomorrow or in fifty years.
The bedside wood had burned brightly, far brighter than anything around it, and the air had roared as it was sucked into the fire, a vortex of flame that stretched high, yearning, it seemed, to lick the low, pregnant cumulus clouds sitting above the valley. When the flame subsided, not long thereafter, his Virginia girl had immediately fallen asleep, almost pitching forward into the flames, if not for his caring hand which had pulled her back into his lap.

He wept, great wracking sobs of joy and sorrow, at the loss of a stranger, at the knowledge that he would love Her forever.