THE CITY OF THE DEAD

Sitting in St, Mark's Square, Venice close to where he'd just lost her, Bond felt the cold chill of death in the air.

It was expected of him to be averse to such things as a fear of mortality, but seeing her gasp for her last breath in her watery tomb made him feel closer to the spectre of death than when, as a child, he had learned of his parents' demise as a result of a climbing accident in the Aiguilles Rouges near Chamonix.

For the first time in a long time he had felt exposed and vulnerable.

Watching the tourists oblivious to his pain, he wondered if perhaps, like her, he was also a ghost now. After all, his entire identity was designed to be a mystery and only those few high up in British intelligence knew those select few secrets about his personal history beyond just his 00 code number.

Being a tool of the state, Bond never felt he was truly free to be himself. Vesper had somehow unlocked that deeper part of him that had mostly got hidden away since childhood.

Now he was back to being a phantom and was just another face in the crowd; the way it should be for a spy, he supposed.

Somewhere in the distance he could hear a street performer singing Caro Nome from Verdi's Rigoletto. The young woman's sincere and pure sounding soprano made his heart ache for Vesper even more.

Sweet name, you who made my heart
throb for the first time,
you must always remind me
the pleasures of love!
My desire will fly to you
on the wings of thought
and my last breath
will be yours, my beloved.

Every time he'd attempted to close his eyes lately he immediately saw her drowning all over again, like a flashback playing on a permanent loop in his mind.  As a consequence, he had found himself unable to properly rest in the minutes, hours and days since the last fateful moments of losing her to the waters of Venice.

Putting on his sunglasses, he could at least dim the sharp Venetian sunlight on his eyes as he crunched some ice from his whiskey cocktail to help sober himself up.

Losing a woman as rare as Vesper had left Bond with the worst psychological hangover of any woman he had loved. Even saying the word "loved" seemed strange to him because he had trained himself to never get too close to anyone, especially the opposite sex, but she was different. She knew him more than the others. There was no hiding from Vesper and, besides, he'd wanted to be as transparent as possible with her anyway.

But now she was gone forever and so, too, he felt was he, as surely the only good part of him had died with her. What was left were all the worst parts. The bitter cynic who couldn't help but see humanity as doomed and who saw most of his attempts at upholding so-called British values as a flimsy facade for masking the wider decay of western civillisation.

Still, if he didn't do it, who would?

"Nature abhors a vacuum," he whispered under his breath.

What would happen if he just disappeared once and for all? They'd find someone else. He wasn't as irreplacable as some had come to think, just a little more indestructible.

And why was that? Because he had come to value his own life less over time. She had given him worth again while she was alive which perversely had made him vulnerable, not just to her but to his enemies. Now she was gone he would be unbreakable, hardened because of his terrible loss and more unforgiving to those who threatened him or his country.

Knocking back the last of his whiskey, he stood up and pulled out some folded euros from a money clip inside his trouser pocket, leaving a generous tip for the waitress who'd served him with a sweet smile.

"Ciao!" She just managed to catch his eye before he left.

Looking back at the young woman, full of hope and belief in the future, he felt melancholic, as if she embodied his spirit of youth that was now all but destroyed.

"Goodbye!"

And with that he disappeared into the crowd.

The young waitress picked up the substantial tip and returned to her station but something about the man made her feel strange, almost as if he was supernatural, not of this earth.

Bond felt better walking at pace through the square.

Passing the young street performer he'd heard just a few moments ago, he noticed she was now joined in a duet by a handsome young student tenor.

Together, they sang "Gluck, das mir berblieb" from Korngold's Die Tote Stadt.

Somehow, Bond couldn't help but see them as symbolising himself and Vesper.

Venice was known as the City of Lovers but for Bond, it would forever be the City of the Dead.