Thank you Suat, for helping me with editing :D
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Ghost Filling
It happened almost too suddenly, but then again almost every death is ‘too sudden’. He walked out, slammed the door. She ran behind and flung open the door. He barked, “stop following me!” and crossed the road. She stood at the pavement, half wanting to follow him and half glued to the ground by his command. The red car came from the right, slowly, driven by a geriatric. He collided with the 20km/h car and wobbled about unsteadily for a few tender seconds. He fell forward, hitting his forehead on the edge of the pavement. The red car veered to the left and ended up on Mrs. Watson’s lawn.
When the ambulance came, they took her away too. She had bloodstains on her shirt from cradling him in her arms. They thought she was injured. They took away elderly Mr. Simmons as well, he had a heart attack at the very thought he hurt someone. Mrs. Watson felt faint upon seeing the accident, but then her first aid training kicked in and she furiously dialed 911 before running out with her kit.
They cleaned her up at the hospital, gave her some advice on how to remove blood stains from clothes, and told her the bad news, he was dead. She fainted.
-----
At the first day of the wake, she was the first person at the door. His mother greeted her wearily, weak from a full fledged day of crying the previous day. She wanted to say some words of comfort and assurance, but one glance at the woman and she realised she was a dam ready to burst – and she didn’t really want such an outpouring of emotion to deal with. As she looked around the room, she noticed to her horror that some of the pictures of her and him were up. Then she realised, almost immediately, that they didn’t know he had left her just moments before he left for good.
For the sake of not making the situation more screwed than it already was, she decided to keep mum. Let them think nothing has happened, she thought to herself, than to further aggrieve them. She sat in a dark corner of the room, next to a window with the blackout curtains drawn, staring mutely at the coffin. She was the last person to leave that night, and this continued itself for the next day.
She drifted like a boat tethered to a dock - till the funeral.
At the funeral the next day, she played the role of the good girlfriend. Sitting in the pew at the front, she sat at the rightmost corner of the left pew, ignoring the people that came to pay their respects. They, in turn, tiptoed around her, a massively petite black elephant in the middle of the painfully beautiful chapel – inappropriate orange and yellow hangings of the last wedding ceremony still up. Amidst the noisy wailings of a mother who lost her beloved son, she cut an almost scarily rigid figure showing no emotion.
At the burial she continued to maintain her silence, watching with barely noticeable glazed eyes as the mahogany coffin was slowly lowered till it touched the bottom of the grave. When it rested and the straps were removed, his mother’s wailings started to rise an octave and from piercing hearts it shifted to piercing the ears of the mourners.
At the funeral reception later, the few friends that dared to venture and ask how she felt were quietly sucked in to her aura of quiet despair; a great feeling of hopelessness and muted pain overtaking their thoughts and feelings. The moment they parted from her however, her aura would quietly fade from their thoughts; a self imposed unconscious amnesia in order to keep one sane.
One such braved soul who dared walk into her aura asked her cautiously, “How do you feel now, with him gone?”
She gave a half smile and laughed a liquid laugh – the kind where one tries to keep back tears and they flow down the nasal cavities – “At least I don’t have to torture myself with the thought that one day he’ll come back to me.” Her friend laughed nervously, and quickly excused herself. She half smiled inwardly at her wittiness.
After the reception was over, she left after hugging his mother. Walking back as the early winter sun started to set; she wandered past the bare skeletal branches of trees, swings abandoned for the warmth of the inside.
Her line had finally become untethered and she was drifting in the open ocean.
Stepping back into the cold emptiness of her house, she switched on the thermostat and put down her bag on a counter. Closing the door behind her, she stepped out of the house and sat on the pavement, watching the last remnants of the sun slip away from the horizon. Slowly one by one the streetlights lit up, controlled by some unseen hand, bathing the empty street in an artificially warm glow. This spot would have been one of the last edges a living him would have touched, she thought, running her gloved hands over the gritty tops of the cement.
She stood up on impulse and wandered over to the middle of the street, shadow trailing behind her apprehensively. He got hit about here, she thought. Standing still, she closed her eyes, trying to feel his presence around her, cold air swirling around. She thought she felt him for a second; however the feeling passed and he was gone once more.
Opening her eyes, she beheld the pavement on the opposite side of the lane. As she slowly advanced, the dark patch on the edge of the pavement grew larger. Presumably a neighbour with good intentions and short patience had tried to clean up the mess - for the blood stains were much smaller than she had last remembered. She could see him lying there, like he had that day. Peaceful, serene, perhaps feeling himself fade away.
Lying down on the asphalt, she shifted her body till her forehead rested on the blood stain. There she lay, savouring the moment. She breathed him, felt him here, but it was nothing but a faint presence. It was here that he had well and truly left her. She lay so still that she soon drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by a neighbour who had let out her dog. Gathering herself up, she sat on the street and brushed off the bits of asphalt on her clothes before getting up and walking into her warm house.
After a warm shower, she snuggled under her sheets and closed her eyes. It was then that she really felt him, covering her and holding her tight like he used to. But she opened her eyes and to her immense disappointment there was no one there. For once in many days, she sucked in a lungful of air and started to sob on her pillow.
-----
The next few days were marked by nothingness as she drifted about the house, watching meaningless things on the television and sitting on the pavement blankly looking out at the street. Her parents had offered to visit, but her mourning was not yet over and she wanted to be alone with her thoughts without intrusion. She coped with the food concerned neighbours brought over, eating just enough to take away her hunger. Every night she shed a few tears, for she never missed him more acutely than she did when she returned to an empty bed and lingering memories.
Soon early winter melded into winter itself and all around the neighbourhood wreaths and colourful lights were tacked onto doors and roofs respectively. The magazines she usually freelanced for were hounding her with requests for articles; they filled out her e-mail inbox along with offers for penile enhancements and cheap Rolexes. She replied with polite refusal to the would-be surgeons and watch sellers and ignored the petulant requests from the editors. The tears at night were quietly replaced with sleeplessness and a deep longing from within her, one day she had no idea how to fill.
A fast diminishing supply of groceries forced her out, back onto the streets – for once in a few months she was forced to interact with beings that weren’t extra cautious around her, kid gloves taken off. As she drove downtown to the supermarket, she felt like a stranger in her own city. Colours seemed more bleached and darker at the same time and nightfall had further turned the apartment blocks into looming towers, creating shadows on the streets. The people seemed more unfriendlier than she remembered, each rushing off and oblivious to the darkness around them, some plugged into other worlds. She shuddered involuntarily and continued driving.
Reaching the safe fluorescent bright white lights of the supermarket, she headed in and slowly picked out her groceries and other essentials. Making her way past the people in the aisles without the slightest social interaction, she continued till the cashier and settled for a slight smile of thanks which went unnoticed by the woman.
Mentally and emotionally taxed by her jaunt into the city, she sat in her car to rest with the heater turned up, before deciding to head back home. She closed her eyes and pretended it was last Christmas, next to the fire. Just as she thought of him a car horn sounded in the distance. Gripping the wheel, she stepped on the gas and drove off.
This time she opted for another route though the city, which was faster and took her through the ghettos. There were more people out on the streets, some roaming in groups and others sitting outside their homes. She could hear loud music being played outside, reduced to a passable level in the interior of her car. As if triggered by the heady beats, the idea of returning back into an empty house and another night of sleeplessness suddenly came to her; it scared her and unsettled her very soul.
A wave of fear came over her; she had been content to drift for the past few months but now she felt so lost. The hole in her soul began to tingle again, and a feeling of immense loss hit her once more. She continued to drive, though slower and taking more frequent shallow breaths.
Just as she passed a woman dressed in the skimpiest of clothes, on a winter’s night nonetheless, a reckless thought passed through her mind. Before rational thought could take over, she wound down the window on the right hand side of the car and called out to the woman, “how much for a night?”
The woman, startled by a distinctively female voice calling out to her hesitated a few moments before walking over and standing as close to the warm car as she could. “$50 sweetie, I don’t really do women though, but I know someone who’s good for women if you want.”
“It’s okay, I don’t really need a specialist – I just need someone.” The woman raised an eyebrow skeptically, opened the car door and settled herself in front of the heater.
“The name’s Dionne, as long as you’re paying I’m game”. The car started to increase in speed and they headed for the suburbs, Dionne’s inane chatter slowly dying down as the warmth made her drowsy.
When she turned into the driveway and parked the car, Dionne woke up groggily. Getting up from the passenger’s side of the car, she followed her slowly into the house. Inside, she switched on the lights and opened her purse to search for her wallet and withdrew the right amount of cash. She turned to Dionne who was now rubbing her eyes and handed it to her without a word.
She walked off towards the bedroom, removing her boots and coat on the way and Dionne followed her apprehensively. Reaching the bed, she climbed up and curled into a ball and closed her eyes. She felt Dionne standing over her, then moving to the other end of the bed (though the creaks on the warped floorboards) and climbing on.
She felt him there, his presence, with her on the bed again; and his arms wrapped loving around her body. She felt tears prickling at her eyelids but refused to move and wipe then away and thus it was in that position she drifted off to the most comforting sleep had had in months.
She dreamt of him, he was holding her and laughing. He said he loved her, he said he was sorry and he said he would never leave her. She smiled in her sleep. She cried silently in her sleep. She felt the hole in her heart get filled again in her sleep.
The next morning she awoke to find Dionne gone.
Falling back on her bed, she closed her eyes and recollected the entire relationship, finger firmly on the fast forward button. She pictured him walking out of the door, that faithful day, door slamming sound ringing in her head.
She inhaled, exhaled, got up and slowly walked the first few steps of her new life. For the first time in months, she smiled blissfully to herself, at peace and at one with the world (she liked clichés, besides, magazine writing always called for clichés!) and drifted into the kitchen to prepare a cup of chamomile tea.
Outside, Mr. Simmons was taking a walk in the frosty morning air with the help of Mrs. Simmons. They waved to Mrs. Watson next door, who was out on her lawn, planning her spring garden (and surreptitiously trying to cover the frozen tyre track gouges with dirt.)
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