Echo will pine for as long as she lives, encircling the bed of narcissus flowers where her love once laid for eternity, as the planets orbit the sun, encapsulated in its gravity. Perhaps not so similar to our own solar system but an ancient long forgotten sister. Her lovelorn body dissolved into the aether, her last words formed in the echo of narcissus’s parting gift. Goodbye. How long had they danced their one sided waltz? before time had stolen them away, painstakingly weaving them forever into the fabric of nature, adding to its tapestry through a gentle call back from the void, of resounding words repeated more times than we would care to hear. Even those who are loving and devoted to the cold and dying heart of another are fated as the rest of us to return the atoms we steal for our lifetimes. Echo and narcissus are immortalised, but leave us only a flower and an echo. Echo must have cursed the beauty she had bound herself to. If only fate had not been so cruel to him, or had not bound them together. maybe her lot would be more peaceful as a forgotten oread, resigned to the dappled shade of slopes of mount donacon, to pine carpeted forests moving quick and soft beneath her feet, her wit and ease directed at humble pursuits and not those of the gods. But even then, maybe her fate was always to be thrown in the path of love, her original curse was to face heras unbinding rage. Her quick tongue and words that flowed as freely as the stream narcissus would later fall to were not enough to stall the goddess convincingly. How blinding and absolute her prided youthfulness must have shone in her eyes to believe Zeus, to hide his infidelity and allow herself to believe she would be rewarded by some favour and not struck down. After all, the gods do not care for nymphs as we do not care for their domains now. Flowers and echoes, still fateful entwined in the unrequited love to those who love and love and love only for themself and the reflections they bear. Also in the calls to lost loves, endless streams of flowers, cousins, sisters, mothers to narcissus and his secluded genus, offered up and rotting at the altars and graves of those who have let themselves be loved and then died. Their lovers crying echoes throughout the night