Day 14 - Silence @daily-writing-challenge
Most of the funeral and reception had been spent in a fog. The sympathetic looks and words were met with a slow nod to show that he was listening, but he wasn’t. Their words all sounded like mumbled nonsense, but it was better for him to dissociate from reality rather than try to pretend that he cared that all these people were ‘so sorry for his losses’ and ‘had him in their thoughts and prayers’.
He remained only as long as was appropriate. He couldn’t even recall how he got from there to his home...their home. He hadn’t set foot in this place since it happened, he couldn’t stand to be around all the constant reminders of a time when he was happy. At this point, he didn’t feel that he would ever be happy again.
Pushing the front door open, he stared into the darkness. A perfect metaphor, he thought to himself. A place once so full of light, love, and laughter now nothing but a black hole of absolute silence. He wasn’t sure how long he stood on the front stoop, his entire body felt heavy and unable to move from this spot. Maybe it was all just a horrible nightmare and then the moment he stepped inside he would wake up and everything would be right in the world once more.
This was his new reality.
He shut the door behind him and flipped on the light. It all suddenly looked and felt so foreign, like walking in on somebody else’s life. It was his smiling face in the photographs, but he couldn’t seem to recall how that man had felt. He picked up the most recently taken picture from the bookshelf; a photo of him and his wife with their hands resting atop her swollen belly. She was about a month out from giving birth to their first child, a son. Just in the other room was the crib that Dicenne had built himself, along with all the gifts from their baby shower still in boxes.
He hugged the frame to his chest and rambled towards the kitchen, pulling a bottle of whiskey out of the liquor cabinet. He didn’t even bother to get a glass and instead took a large swig straight from the bottle itself, uncaring that some escaped and dribbled down his chin onto his black suit. Helping himself to a gulp every now and then, he made his way into their bedroom and set the nearly empty bottle atop the dresser before climbing onto her side of the bed.
He could still smell her perfume and distinct scent lingering on her pillow. Hugging it and the photograph against his chest, he laid down and shut his eyes, inhaling deeply. Maybe he could pretend just for the night that she was still here with him; head pressed against his chest as she had done for so many years when they fell asleep tangled together. But all of the maybe’s and the what if’s wouldn’t bring them back.
They were gone. Nothing would ever be the same.