Minutes stretched like hours, and hours unraveled into what felt like days.
Arnold sat still beneath the heavy canvas of his tent, its silence pierced only by the occasional creak of leather or the distant clatter of a restless camp.
His eyes drifted again across the familiar fragments of his exile,objects that had not changed in weeks, yet seemed to weigh more with each passing day. The dried ink stains on parchment left from unfinished letters.
He had written them for Cretio and for his daughter; the first died , the other he divorced.
So to whom was he to send any words?
Was there somebody to give him true company? The answer looked to be negative as he gazed around at the loneliness of it all.
The tiny wildflower that had fallen to the rug beneath his cot, forgotten yet strangely enduring. A handful of trinkets and mementos, once comforting, now felt like relics from a life that no longer existed.
