Susanna lay in the coffin, her face drained and standing out in stark contrast to the black of the wooden box encasing her body. She looked drawn, her body still, quiet, peaceful. The ghostly pallor of death had replaced the red of her lips; the emerald of her eyes lost forever to my sight. I watched as her ashen-faced sister arranged Susanna’s raven-black hair so it draped naturally across the light, silk pillowcase and over her pale shoulders. I leaned down and ran my fingers through her long tresses and caressed her cheek. How soft, how cold, how colorless. The softness I recalled from a fondness for brushing my lips across her cheeks; the unfamiliar, alien cold a lie to the warmth of the living Susanna in my arm; the lack of color a specter of the flush of excitement in her cheeks. I looked at her through tear-filled eyes, hardened heart, and clouded mind. Susanna, the bright spot in my life, my supernova of excitement, my floating, lilting snowflake of happiness. A flash of light like that preceding the darkening of a light bulb, memories of Susanna, flared like phosphorus in my mind before settling as a numbness in the barren, cold, arctic desert of my heart.