Vignettes: Part II

We are all but unfinished chapters.
Vignettes: Windows into our daily nightmares, Part Two


Though he closed his eyes when he kissed her and gripped her body with tender hands, she wondered if he really knew what it was that he loved. All smiles and lighthearted giggles, she could attract those strangers, make them love her desperately, but once the haze of her charming façade had lifted, they were miles away—off to greener pastures; to girls without hurt, without the soul bruises and nightmares she so often endured. They would come and go. What hurt her most was her need.

He thought he had reached his crescendo, though now only the faintest melody resided within. The kind words were those that would haunt him—leaving behind the sting of regret, now manifesting itself in the wetness on his sullen cheeks.

All the roses in the world couldn’t fix it. Their love had expired, she knew it, he knew it, yet they clung to the festering bond, helpless, desperate and afraid of the emotion that would follow. “Numb” would suffice.

Sucking greedily on his cigarette, he walked on, defiant, blinking away tears. This was his life. The glares, the daily beatings, the loss of his family’s approval- and an ever shrinking circle of potential mates. It wasn’t a choice.

Reeling, she didn’t drop the phone like they did in the movies. She hung up slowly, deliberately-and felt an instant wave of nothing.

He had done it to her-that which was done to him, so many years ago. His mind quivered with remorse and disgust at his weakness. Listlessly fingering the revolver he had stashed in his bedside table, for the first time in years, he cried.

She had tried to wash it away. They had plucked hair from every part of her body and kept her in the hospital for hours asking questions, forcing her to relive the loss of her innocence. She could still see his face. She wouldn’t forget.

Life didn’t give breaks. Not to her. Yet every little bitch around her had the tinkle of a laugh untainted by sorrow. Staring out the windows of the train, she watched the faces of strangers rush by and wondered what the hell she was going to do now.
The seeds of his destruction were planted the moment he took his first drink. Weak, like an abandoned young sparrow, he shivered, lamenting the things he’d left behind.
The seasons were shifting, the final leaves of autumn clinging to the branches, barren and twisted against the murky sky. It would be a cold winter, he thought, dreading an impending Christmas without his mother. She had drifted away, finally forgetting his name. In her last moments, she had looked like a frightened child.