The 5th Jun 2010 WriteOnSite Winning Entry
A small pine table, two chairs whose white paint has worn away: these stand in front of the kitchen window, waiting for breakfast to begin, reflecting the light as it shifts and dances, following the rhythm of the clouds in the windy sky.
I stand forlornly by the sink and fill the kettle. Your cup rests on the shelf, next to mine. A bag of coffee - the coffee you chose last Saturday when we walked round the supermarket together - is rolled down with a clothes peg. You could never start the day without a coffee, and I used to laugh at you for being such a sleepy-head.
So, there being no other option, I make coffee for myself in the beat-up old cafetiere. Where did we buy it, I wonder - I remember, it was in the old department store in town. It's gone now. I'm wearing your dressing gown. I want to feel you near me again.
Now I'm in my usual seat, and the watery sun warms my right shoulder. The old lady nextdoor with unnaturally orange hair takes her rubbish out to the bin. A cat slinks under a parked car and disappears. Car engines rumble near and far as the day begins.
My hand shakes as I spoon the sugar into my cup. I need a cigarette, although I gave up for you six months ago, so I can't have one. The empty space filling your chair is palpable - I almost reach out and touch the space that isn't you, willing you into existence again.
I sit, holding my empty cup, and watch the world going by outside without really watching it at all. How can it all continue now that you are gone? How can everyone be so heartless - don't they know you're not here anymore?
Your too-white face appears before me again, relaxed on the hospital pillow after the pain had passed and your struggle to live had ended. Nobody could have seen it coming, the doctor said - nobody could have known about the condition that took you from me, until it showed itself and made you collapse on the floor two days ago. You never spoke after that. I don't know if you felt me holding your hand, heard me talking to you and telling you how much I loved you.
Your parents didn't arrive in time. We lived so far away from them, and they'd never forgiven me for taking you from them into a life they hadn't planned for you. They wanted you to have a husband, a nice man, not another woman. They couldn't understand what we had together.
And now it's over. You've been switched off like a light, and your absence pummels me, taking my breath from my lungs, making me sink under the weight of the loss of you.
I don't know how I will live again without you, how I will continue those rhythms of life, of our life, now that half the music is gone. I stretch out my arm across the now far too big breakfast table, to take your hand as I used to, and to stroke your soft skin. But there's nothing there. Just an empty chair.
Copyright © 2008 Rob Richardson. All Rights Reserved.