An aroma of baked potatoes wafted through the
morning cold. I snuggled under the blankets. I didn’t usually get up early on
Saturdays. Even if I wasn’t asleep, I’d lie on bed and read a book or stare at
the ceiling and let my thoughts go wild. They really could go wild, my
thoughts. I looked at the ceiling and muttered a curse. It had been three weeks
since she left. Out there, outside my house, everyone saw me as a blissful man.
No one knew about the void that she left inside of me; about the tears that scalded
my cheeks every night. My pain was concealed behind an ostensibly happy face.
Indeed since she left, my world had turned into a stage and I had been reduced
to an actor, albeit a neophyte. I lied to those around me that I was happy she
was gone. At times I wondered, as I squirmed with pain under my blankets, if I
ever crossed her mind. The thought was agonising. Her words still echoed in my
mind; those last words she uttered just before banging the door and turning her
back on me. There are things you haven’t
done in life. But one day you will do them. And you will rejoice. Many
times I had been hitting my head against the wall, cracking my skull trying to
figure out what it was that I hadn’t done. Hurt and misery corroded the walls
of my skull. As far as I knew, she and I had been a having a flawless,
watertight relationship. We were the envy of our friends – the prototype of
bona fide love. I sniffled again, sucking in the delicious aroma of potatoes. A
cold tear dropped on the ala of my nose. I shuddered.
In My Room/Office/Studio
"A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right." - John K. Hutchen.
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