She lay the flowers against her father's gravestone. It was one year since he had passed away and Jojo, or Jo as she now liked to be called, stood silently, reflecting, her long hair fluttering gently in the late Autumn breeze.
She missed the old man, his dry, twinkling sense of humour, and the way he crinkled his nose in disgust at humanity. Well, he pretended to, because she knew his deep capacity for love. She brushed a stray tear from her eye and sighed.
From somewhere he watched her sadly, wanting just for a fleeting moment to reach out and touch her, to sense the warmth of her soft skin, the fragrance of her hair, to feel the touch of her embrace.
Life and death had one thing in common it seemed: both were intensely cruel.
