A Loss Realised

Last night she returned home late. It was the morning really. I had been restless, trying to sleep but too hot in my bed in spite of the winter. Perhaps I was feverish, it is always difficult to know. But whatever was wrong, it lifted as she opened the door. The light from the hallway lit her from behind, and yellow fingers crept forward across her cheeks, caressing her, softening her. She stood there for a moment, assessing the room, and then she said my name; enquiring, testing to find out if I was there, to find out if I loved her. And as the name came again I stirred and said her’s. And that was all that was required to bring her across the room, to fold her into me, to bring stillness.

Later I awoke. Light was forcing its way through the unlined curtains. I was cold so I pulled the duvet closer to me with no resistance. She was not there. The bed clothes next to me were flat and as I saw this, and understood what it meant, that disgusting wrench that pulls your throat and eyes down into your body, that forces itself upon you, tearing through you, began. My breath shortened as my eyes watered against the strain. Shuddering and rasping, tensing and relaxing in an arrhythmic pulse, I was momentarily transported from sensation. And then, suddenly, it stopped, before the movement was finished, leaving a density, a horrible stymied feeling; something deep within needed coughing up, spitting out.