Monthly Archives: January 2017

2017/01/06

Inconsistent Argumentation

By dsholloway

 

For the rest of her life, she would blame herself for the death of all that could have been because she decided that the risks, whatever they were (she didn’t know), were too great.  She said nothing on the phone, really, the first time they had spoken in months, while he tried to convince her (bless his heart) that the risks, whatever they were (he didn’t know), were not insurmountable.

They were both dissatisfied by the course their relationship had taken, and were equally frustrated in their inability to right things. They had been the best couple: fashionable, catty, glamorous. (They could only be those things independently now.) They loved each other deeply. She felt that she should have done more to alleviate the stress that built over the years. She felt she should have said I love you more.

Now was her chance to do that, to turn over a new leaf or whatever. But she didn’t, and instead told him that she would do nothing to fix what seemed so, so broken.

“I just want to put things back how they were,” she said, before hanging up.

So did he. But she meant it in a different way.

 

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2017/01/04

The Abyss of Freedom

By dsholloway

Something possessed him to enroll in a woodworking class at the community college. Which was fine.

Ever since she introduced him to the male members of her family – all tall, rich, and unfaithful to their wives and girlfriends – he sought to “up his man game.” She rolled her eyes whenever he said this and was secretly sad that he felt the need to be different. Nevertheless, every Wednesday for the past eight weeks he came home late. Which was fine. He was making her a clock.

When he climbed in bed – after showering, naturally – he dutifully whispered in her ear his progress. “It’s done,” he said softly. “It’s on the table.”

She jumped up, not bothering to put a stitch of clothing on (this did not bother him), and dashed to the dining room. It was an awful thing – uneven and splintery.

“K,” she said like a homeroom teacher, “it’s not even telling the right time.”

“I know,” he replied proudly. “It’s set to when we first kissed.”

She looked at him incredulously.

He explained. “Your eyes were closed and I looked at my watch. I wanted to remember.”

She began to cry, and he glanced down at his watch.

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2017/01/02

An Attempt to Come to Terms

By dsholloway

Lying in the dark, a thought dances along the edges of his mind, carefully gliding over the puddles of vodka and sidestepping the scattered SSRIs.

He had always been careful to turn music on; it was the only way he could get her to sleep. He preferred a tomb-like enclosure. She was the opposite, but she was also loved by him. So he cued up gentle piano music and let it lull her to sleep. During the early days of their relationship, he slept very little, distracted by the sound and unable to settle down because of the presence of someone in his bed. He grew accustomed and eventually dependent on her body being next to his. But he never trained himself to sleep through the music, faint though it was.

When he woke to find her gone, he recalls now, there had been a power outage, or else he had been too wasted. Either way there was no music. There was, instead, silence. But it wasn’t the silence he wanted. It claimed her, unjustly.

He feels her in the silence. But he can’t sleep. So he turns her piano sounds back on. But he can’t sleep that way either.

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