He sits in silence, idly tracing the pale purple veins which pulse just beneath her petal-soft skin, as if this simple task is of utmost importance.

“It will be soon now,” she says matter-of-factly, in the same way you might state “The earth is round” or “Ice is cold”.

“You don’t know that.”  His response is ridiculous.  She does in fact know, better than anyone, that it will be soon.

“Doesn’t the sun feel amazing today?” she asks, sighing softly as a filtered beam shines directly onto her upturned face.  A gentle breeze sets the weeping willow branches into motion overhead, causing sunlight to ebb and flow – one moment leaving her bathed in radiant light and the next blanketed in shadow.

A trickle of water, barely large enough to call itself a stream, runs through the garden.  It meanders lazily past her wheelchair, chortling gleefully to itself in spite of his sombre mood.

“Perhaps this latest treatment is working.  We just need to give it more time,” he says.

His words of false hope, along with the stream’s incessant chatter, are drowned out by another violent coughing fit.  They come more frequently now. She bends and sways like the willow as coughs rack her fragile frame.

“Did you know that the colour violet represents our imagination and dreams for the future?” she asks with a rasp.  The coughing has subsided, but the pain is still evident in her features.

“Violets are such hopeful little flowers, aren’t they?” she whispers, turning to look at him.

He glances hastily away, and instantly regrets it.  The truth in her eyes is more than he can bear.

Meanwhile, hundreds of silent observers – nestled in their mossy bed at the water’s edge – nod their downy purple heads modestly in hushed agreement.