The journey had taken me ‘round again to the beginning or as close to it as I’d wanted to come. Her scent filled the air, a perfume in my nose and mind. Her haunting me had been so easy; it engulfed me in sorrow and I was a push over.
“Hey, how ya been?” I asked, lifting her brush up and pushing it into my cheek. Her hair still clung in a web among the needles too real. ‘Damn it kid’ I could hear her spirit saying ‘snap the fuck out of it already’. But for me it wasn’t the time, and honestly I thought there would never be a time, yet the wave of emotion passed in a flush of heat through my quivering body welcoming it. Maybe it was the silent instruction, mentally projecting itself that had done its job for the moment, but tears insisted pouring out regardless. “Damn it” I said aloud and gently replaced the brush to its original position among the rest her life’s paraphernalia. My fingers strove over the items: lipstick, liner, creams, atomizer and the hand mirror. I’d not been able to look into it, least its last image within vanish under my gaze and so my hands lay atop the handle, numb. Unwilling and unable to lift up her last reflection I simply sat.
‘Snap the fuck out of it’ I heard her say again and looking up saw my own sad surreal eyes painted in her vanity. Looking down again, ashamed of my melodramatic reaction to these things, simply not her, I once again felt the mirror’s handle underneath my palm. Eyes wandering upon her things: things unrelated to time, unrelated to death. My watering eyes dull, red, and lifeless in life now, gazed.
A picture she had framed was on the tops edge; we were so young back then and had had hope. She beamed out at me (in the picture), and I the ever so serious, sat dumb struck at the luck that had brought her to my side; so young I thought and naive. Yet it hadn’t really been that long ago we had shared ‘the joke’. The photographer had his fly open. I whispered the news and feigning ignorance, she looked him squarely in the eye and said, “Shoot the damn thing already.” It was then that the memory was made. We giggled like the kids that we were and after paying the man, went off to make our future. A short, short future together chucked with other such nonsensical increments that life hands its lovers.
‘Snap out of it’ she said again somewhere between then and now.
Lifting up the hand mirror, I was shaking so badly as I turned it ‘round to look upon what was hers: a blurred image. What should have been my eyes were lost to times awakening and with an unaided arm I smashed it into the larger mirrored image of the vanity that had watched me all along.
‘Snap it’ she had said. He did, we did, and now I on my own certainly had. The little bits of our life, fragmented, incomplete and never to be made whole again lay in shards. That which she had cherished no longer remained whole. What was hers was no longer wanted. I found then, that I had died as well, and in a snap became simply her ghost.
“Hey, how ya been?” I asked, lifting her brush up and pushing it into my cheek. Her hair still clung in a web among the needles too real. ‘Damn it kid’ I could hear her spirit saying ‘snap the fuck out of it already’. But for me it wasn’t the time, and honestly I thought there would never be a time, yet the wave of emotion passed in a flush of heat through my quivering body welcoming it. Maybe it was the silent instruction, mentally projecting itself that had done its job for the moment, but tears insisted pouring out regardless. “Damn it” I said aloud and gently replaced the brush to its original position among the rest her life’s paraphernalia. My fingers strove over the items: lipstick, liner, creams, atomizer and the hand mirror. I’d not been able to look into it, least its last image within vanish under my gaze and so my hands lay atop the handle, numb. Unwilling and unable to lift up her last reflection I simply sat.
‘Snap the fuck out of it’ I heard her say again and looking up saw my own sad surreal eyes painted in her vanity. Looking down again, ashamed of my melodramatic reaction to these things, simply not her, I once again felt the mirror’s handle underneath my palm. Eyes wandering upon her things: things unrelated to time, unrelated to death. My watering eyes dull, red, and lifeless in life now, gazed.
A picture she had framed was on the tops edge; we were so young back then and had had hope. She beamed out at me (in the picture), and I the ever so serious, sat dumb struck at the luck that had brought her to my side; so young I thought and naive. Yet it hadn’t really been that long ago we had shared ‘the joke’. The photographer had his fly open. I whispered the news and feigning ignorance, she looked him squarely in the eye and said, “Shoot the damn thing already.” It was then that the memory was made. We giggled like the kids that we were and after paying the man, went off to make our future. A short, short future together chucked with other such nonsensical increments that life hands its lovers.
‘Snap out of it’ she said again somewhere between then and now.
Lifting up the hand mirror, I was shaking so badly as I turned it ‘round to look upon what was hers: a blurred image. What should have been my eyes were lost to times awakening and with an unaided arm I smashed it into the larger mirrored image of the vanity that had watched me all along.
‘Snap it’ she had said. He did, we did, and now I on my own certainly had. The little bits of our life, fragmented, incomplete and never to be made whole again lay in shards. That which she had cherished no longer remained whole. What was hers was no longer wanted. I found then, that I had died as well, and in a snap became simply her ghost.
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