I Thought I Saw You

“This is it. Your plot twist. Your character conflict. I’m about to leave you for another man. I want to marry that other guy and abandon you in the history of my life. How do you feel about that?”

“Non-existential.”

“Welcome to reality.”

I’m in love with the morning. The smell and the damp dew on your fingertips. When you walk home from a long night, you find the calm in the sunrise. You feel the beginning of a new day; a new chance. There is no one and nothing that can deter from the morning or the rest of the day. Not yet.

I walked down my street with the cool breeze from the river blowing my hair back. I watched the garbage trucks roll down the street and the slaughterhouse unload a new delivery of chickens. They crowed this early in the morning. They didn’t know what they’ve gotten into.

I raised my arms up in the air and felt the leaves on the trees as birds sung their morning calls. The mist on the branches leave my hands feeling soft after a long day of cleaning and scrubbing and scrounging for sanity in my life.

Then I looked down at my hands. They are rough. They are wrinkled and worn from use. I no longer let someone carry the weight for me. I carry the weight myself, which is evident in my hands.

You can still see a bit of innocence in them, but they aren’t soft. They aren’t delicate any more.

But this morning, the dew kept them moist. Like a newborn baby, my hands were as bright as the dawn.

“Why are you so miserable?”

“What?”

“I asked why you are such a miserable person.”

“I’m not.”

“It doesn’t seem that way. You know what they say, ‘misery loves company.’ Is that why you leave? Is that why you assume everyone is against you?”

I didn’t know what to say. Words couldn’t form sentences in my brain. I was infuriated. The anger subsided quickly as the thought processed in my brain.

Perhaps I am miserable. Perhaps.

Her bones lay heavy in the casket she laid in. She felt her skin wrap around her muscles and that around her skeleton. It was tight. It felt tight. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t make oxygen enter her lungs and carbon dioxide to leave her lungs. In fact, she couldn’t feel anything.

Her body lay still amongst the satin bedding. Even in the darkness, she can feel the gleam of the fabric hurt her eyes. She wanted anything to get out of the box. She willed herself to cry. She couldn’t feel the tears fall down her cheek.

What am I to do? How do I get out of here?

Then, she remembered. She couldn’t move, but she could remember. She remembered the man who put her in the casket. She could feel his filthy breath on her collar bone as he placed his hand behind her neck. She could imagine the weight of his body on hers; the subtle thrust of his pelvis. She tried not to think back to that moment she felt her childhood remove itself from her life.

He put her in this casket. He made it so she couldn’t move or breathe. He figured out a way to make her only remember and as planned she remembered everything. He took away her tears. He took away the beating of her heart. She can only imagine the bones of her body deterring from the muscles. She can only envision her life inside the small box.

What am I to do? How do I get out of here?

Nostalgia made her feel alone. Thinking of the past whether it be hers or someone else’s made her think about how surreal her own life feels. However, the feeling never lasted any longer than a few seconds before something else captured her attention.

When Mr. Sandman began to play, she didn’t feel so alone. She felt a bit of happiness in the harmonizing and the sweet thought of dreaming up a man. She longed for that dream to come true, but for now all she can do is sleep.