Morning

This is the short story/paragraph I wrote June/July 2008.  I was inspired after a rather violent thunderstorm.  I was thinking about someone, and I took my pen to paper and this is what happened.

I wrote this back in May or June of 2008.  I have since broadened it, and made it into a 20-page story.   

The morning air was dewy, an inconsequential trace of the storm that had raged outside hours before.  The trees dripped with wetness, and the birds chirped a quiet song, as if singing louder may cause the storm to rage once more.  And I lay in my bed, with my head swirling in many collective thoughts.

It wasn’t long ago that a storm raged in this bedroom.  You were there; at the end of the bed, and I was sitting up, screaming profanities.  Words that shouldn’t have been said were spoken, and what I remember more clearly than anything else was the painful echo of the door slamming behind you.  You came back later, while I was at work, to collect the various things you’d left behind.  I walked through that door, to a seemingly empty space.  Unknowingly (or perhaps not), you left your sweatshirt from the weekend trip we took to Cape Cod.  You had complained that the coast was uncomfortably cold, and that you needed protection from the frigid Atlantic sea breeze.  And somehow I was completely warm on that shore.  You probably can guess that I picked up that sweatshirt, and smelled it.  Oddly, it smelled of you.  However unusual that sounds, that sweatshirt was immediately put into my dresser drawer after we got back, where it stayed for six months.  There was no way that your scent would have remained.  Maybe I imagined smelling your cologne.  Who knows?  On my bad days, which seem more often than they used to, I pull that damn sweatshirt out of a drawer and picture you wearing it.

What angers me more than anything is that you haunt me night and day.  In the moments where I finally think you’re going to leave my mind altogether, your eyes pop into my head.  Those eyes: a shocking brown, which rendered me helpless anytime I gazed into them.  You’re everywhere, it seems.  Hell, you’re in this bed now, taunting me to “Stop typing, and come to bed.”   Taunting me with warm embraces, passionate kisses, and endless memories.  You always enjoyed the moments we spent in here than anywhere else in the house.  “A bedroom has a lifetime of memories,” you once said, a mischievous smile spread across your glowing face.  I’d look at you, wondering why on Earth you were so damn likable.  It puzzles me even now.

If I could say anything to you, it would be I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for being that wretched person that day, for saying things I knew would hurt you, and not even caring about the possible outcome.  You ought to know I say things before I realize what I’ve said.  With that said, I know that nothing in the world will ever change what happened.

Anyway, I just thought I would set that all out, so I can move on.  You were my first real love, and I will never forget you.

Although I know I shouldn’t blame myself, I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t said what I did, you’d still be alive, and we might still be together.  Who knew that on your way home you’d be taken away forever in an accident?

Everything about you will live with me until my dying breath. 

I miss you.

Love,

You-know-who