I had knelt a long time at my parents' grave. A sudden gush of grief had seized me, taken my thoughts away, and when I found back to reality my knees where stiff and the sun had already met the horizon. I stood up and walked towards the exit of the cemetery, but I didn't feel like going home already, and as the air was still warm, I sat down on a wooden bench under an old weeping willow.

My thoughts trailed off again. Suddenly I noticed a young woman who came out of the path opposite my place. She came to the bench and silently sat down next to me. I looked at her. She was very thin and pale, with blond hair that seemed almost white, and had to be even younger than I had first thought. She shivered, but although her simple white dress had to be too cold even for this warm evening I realized that it wasn't the beginning night that made her tremble but the tearless, silent sobs she uttered. She must have lost somebody very dear.

We sat in silence for some time. The warm, motionless air lulled me into some kind of trance again. Suddenly the girl broke the spell. She sat up, turned to me and asked in a sweet, almost musical voice: "How did you come here?"

I didn't answer immediately, partly because I was surprised to be addressed, partly because her question seemed so strange. How I came here? Surely she wanted to ask why I came here. She still looked at me, questioningly. I shook off my wandering thoughts.

"My parents are buried here." I realized how coarse my voice sounded. What a contrast to her soft, singing tone! She watched me, her face was full of pity. I didn't want her pity. I didn't want to look back, and anyway she looked as if her loss had been much harder, and much more recent.

"Why did you come here?", I asked. She hesitated, seemed to be lost in thought. Then she spoke, her head bent up, her face distracted.

"My boyfriend was a pilot. He … I loved him so - still love him. He brought me back to life … You know, I've had these depressions, I'd had them for years, but some time before I met him it went really bad. I was always taking those medicines, and they did help a bit, but it wasn't enough. He literally dragged me off the bridge when he saw me standing there.

We fell in love immediately. He was always so kind, so sweet, and he gave a meaning to my life. He gave me my life.

And then he died in a car crash. I mean, isn't that absurd? Really absurd? He's - he was - a pilot, he flew one of these small sport airplanes, every day, and he was working for some meteorologists, always flying in the worst weather, and he could have had a plane accident any day, and then he dies when he crosses a street and one car crashes into another and they glide into him because the street is icy.

I nearly lost my mind when I heard about it. I locked myself in my room and cried for days. And then I stopped taking my medicines. I couldn't find any sense in them anymore. I didn't see any meaning in my life. He had given my life a meaning, and then he had died in such a stupid, absurd, completely meaningless accident. And without my medicines it went even worse …"

She trembled again, from a grim cold deep within her soul, so grim that even I felt it. Or did I only feel the breaking night and the chilly breeze that had started to blow through the now nearly dark cemetery? The wind stirred the leaves of the tree behind us. The low noise sounded like silent sobs - or did I mix it up with the sobs the girl at my side uttered?

I saw a gleaming tear running down her cheek. I wanted to calm her, comfort her. I lifted my arm and wanted to put it around her shoulders, but something prevented me from that. She looked so pale, so fragile, as if the slightest touch would shatter her beautiful frame. I let my hand sink down. I didn't dare to touch her lest she should fall apart like a broken glass.

Now her head fell down, she sank into herself and cupped her face in her tender hands. Although she sobbed heavily, I didn't hear a sound but the rustling of the leaves in the growing wind. I so wanted to give her comfort, but I did not know what I could do to soothe this mortal grief. I lifted my hand again and realized that it trembled. I gently pushed back her long soft hair that had fallen over her face.

It was then that I suddenly noticed the ugly blue-violet mark around her neck. Curiously, I examined it more closely. A strange pattern was impressed deeply into the white skin. It looked like the structure of a rope, a strong hemp rope.

A sudden suspicion struck me. I couldn't hold back myself anymore.

"Did you …" I cleared my throat. "Did you try to … commit suicide?"

She sat up and stared at me with wide eyes that where still red from crying.

"What did you think how I came here?"