L'Aquilone du Estrellas

"No, there is time for everything," the butcher's boy whispered to himself as he pushed and pulled at the ropes and strings, pulley and levers and gears of the impossible contrivance.

"Goodbye, goodbye!" she shouted down to him as the star kite began its rapid ascent to the speckled firmament above.

"Goodbye, goodbye," he whispered, as his heart finally broke into a thousand mismatched pieces, each one small, hard, and sharp. The tears of the butcher's boy (who had long since ceased to be a boy) flowed freely down his face as he watched her rise -- the extraordinary old woman he had always loved strapped to the frame of an impossible kite.

As she rose, he sighed and reflected on the absurdity of life, the heaviness of loss, the cruelty of hope, the truth about quests, and the relentless nature of a love that knew only one direction. His hands swiftly played out the tether (that part of the marvelous rope they had bargained for with two rid