The Gift of Love By Angela Tang, 12 Mason, OH She armoured her husband with the gift of love, remindinghim that this was the calm before the storm. She watched with fear as her husbandran at the enemy, knowing that truly, the only thing he ran at was death itself. The fair maiden poured her a cup of tea, with a gentleclinking that reminded the wife of perhaps her last tea with him. She thus drank noneof it. None of it without the only man that she knew she loved. Years passed as the wife’s bones wore away, skin deflatedand sagged, but she still sat everyday with the same poise at the old, now rustedcircular table, waiting, longing for her husband to come back from war. But he never did. She stood by the window, the translucent window thatshone iridescent onto the little dirt path, where the wife had still imagined her supposedlylate husband’s footsteps, rising plumes of ash. But they were now covered with sootof the present, the love in every stride now belittled by the picturesque landscape,as if it was straight from a pastel painting. The wife took a step into the gentle breeze of lateautumn, careful to always lay eyes on what was ahead of her, not her past. She walked andwalked until she came to the beautiful willow where she would always put her handsagainst, pressing deep into the thick trunk, now armed with experience and love. Thewife believed the willow was her husband, strong, beautiful, but barely recognized.She scrunched her hands, lacing them together, and bowed her head into the peelingbark of the willow. The wife prayed that she could let go of her pastand move further, further away into the future. Her essence soon disintegrated into anotherplace- her mind. She was trapped in the sorrow she had accumulated as she sat at thetea table, pouring herself a cup but yet, not drinking a drop of it. She then felt a pair of warm hands on her back, andheard the clink of old armour and the spark of love in the heat of the hands. The wife blinked once again, and peered behind her.Behind her stood a man, grown way taller past her shoulders, hair matted and partlyburnt, and the old rusty weaponry that the wife immediately recognized as the armourshe had carefully placed with perfection. But it was the face that sent her soulaway. The warm smile and the beautiful eyes that she could get lost into at the first gaze.The man spoke with a gentle expression dripping with the honey in the wife’s tea. “Hello, my princess.”