Paintings

Frodo wheezed softly, clasping the left side of his chest, almost staggering as he seated himself in a wide, softly cushioned divan in the porch of his small cot in the Blessed Realms. A vise-like claw felt like squeezing and crushing his heart. The splendor of the sea-gulls flying over the contours of the white shores or the gentle breeze wafting the crispness of the sea’s breath in his face could not suppress the pang caused by it.

They came again – flashes of the events that had befallen him in his life. He could recall all those blissful and bleak times in his past days like looking into images many of which were adorning other Elven homes on this island. They were no longer apparitions he often thought of seeing before now.

The Halfling took a deep breath. He felt tired and he looked it. He was no longer the spirited, youthful hobbit he had once been. Samwise had passed some years ago, Bilbo long before that. His own time almost came, and he was ware of that.

Looking over his hands now lined with faint marks of years, Frodo’s breath caught. This was something he could not share with anyone. He undoubtedly could not talk to Gandalf or Elrond or the other elves. They knew too much; they would instantly see the meaning of this, and thus they would grieve. Frodo did not want them to lament over him. They had done so much for him.

Then, it was just fitting he could not talk to any of his kinsmen for they would just not comprehend why – even what. Frodo had tried to write them down – those paintings that came to his mind like torrents of water – but he failed. It would as well have been very much like a blabber had he tried to talk at all.

Frodo looked up again to the waves in a distance, grey clouds over his formerly pools of blue. He rose. Mayhap if he dozed, those ghosts from the past would not come again.

Perchance he would be left alone to rest.

Just rest.

~  *  ~

AN: In my belief, we understand that about 40 days before passing, a person starts to be shown how he has lived his life. And it is somekind of a film in his/her mind. But it's just very difficult for him/her to talk about it. Somehow, I knew this when it started to happen to my father.