End of the Red Season – Very Short Story
And everyday after Sam was a funeral. I woke only to weep. I mourned in the darkness of my tiny bedroom. Occasionally I would light a single, dusty candle and plead with a nameless, faceless god. JUST MAKE IT STOP! I was determined to hold vigil there endlessly unless he and I were united again. Or else I would grieve myself to death. My soul is torn in half why should my body not suffer as much! I shall not leave this room again!
At some point I completely disconnected. I was completely aware of what was around me. What was happening to me. But it’s as if I was watching it on some black and white TV, hazy and colorless, drab and unchanging. Guilt and shame and death coated me like nicotine on the inside of a windshield. I had no will to move. I didn’t feel hunger, I didn’t feel anything. I felt nothing other than the gaping hole in my chest. I felt nothing but his absence. The heat of a thousand candles couldn’t warm that tiny room. For 26 days I left only once a day. The details of which are unladylike to discuss in mixed company so I won’t burden you with them.
For 26 days every lonely love song ever written, ever heard, played relentlessly in my head. Like a soundtrack to his image that was etched on this inside of my eyelids, burning into me every moment. My pain is mine! I can do with it what I like. If only you could see the ragged chasm in the center of myself.
Looking back now I can barely understand it. I can barely fathom ever being so low. But the feeling of it still lingers. And if you’d have asked me then I could have explained it in glorious detail for days on end.
But no. Now its only a lingering effigy of something that used to be a real feeling.
Special thanks to Ashlen Court for contributing this wonderful short story. Ashlen is a sports writer, musician and artist from SE, Texas. She tweets @SpaceNacho and blogs on notquiteanything.blogspot.com
Dear Ashlen,
I read your short story (End of the Red Season). Indeed very dense and quite riveting!!!!
There were 2 lines in this story which kind of shook me, as I too can relate to them myself: “My pain is mine! I can do with it what I like”. How very true………Very nicely written. Keep up the good writing skills.
Best Regards,
Arun
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