Basil

A year after his death little had changed though her sorrow had wound itself down to a dull throbbing ache. She would walk home each day after work and think of him as she passed by the basil bush that grew opposite the swimming pool gate. That was the point in the day where she’d come unstitched and would slowly unravel all the way home. She kept his memory tautly wrapped by thin threads of sorrow but like clockwork each day, she would snag on a memory too raw and too close. And her tears would fall as she passed by the Basil bush. She read some time later that in Persia and Malaysia, Basil is often planted on graves.

 It lasted just over a year, this strange herbal process of grieving. And one day she happened to notice she had made it all the way home and forgotten to cry. A week later a water pipe burst near the pool and a maintenance crew dug its way to a quick resolution, Ocymum minumum sacrificed on the way. The crew left behind a deep earthy hole where the roots of the bush had once been - a hole that eventually fell in on itself, and then disappeared. Her grief vanished in much the same way.