Brigit's Flame Week 4 April
Title: After
Author: Keppiehed
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Word Count: 572
Prompt: Ya'aburnee: Arabic incantatory word that means You bury me. It's a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before a loved one, because of how difficult it would be to live without them.
A/N: Written for week #4 at Brigits_flame. I'd like to say that this prompt hit upon one of my personal fears, something that I always very selfishly have worried about. I can think of little else worse in this world than to be tied to such terrible grief and suffering, and it from that perspective that I give you this especially angsty piece!
You never minded the silence, not until that was all you heard. Then it became a shroud, something you wanted to cast off but couldn't because it was so thick it smothered you. It was the other presence in the house, in the very air you breathed. Silence sat across from you at the table, ate your toast with you and stole your thoughts when you tried to concentrate. It distorted the ticking of the clock until you couldn't listen anymore; you heard nothing at all except your own loneliness, echoing.
It didn't used to be that way, of course. That was a slippery slope. Before. There was danger of falling into memories, bright as baubles. They might not let you out, and one day you'd be blank-faced, unable to come back from the void that was your own mind these days. Would that be so bad? you wondered. But there were dark things in there, things that you didn't want to remember. And so you were careful to take out that box only rarely, on days when you thought things were good and you could keep in the light.
But on those days, oh. There were some splendors to behold. This house used to be a home. You let your gaze fall past the curtains, past the glass in the panes to the yard. There had been life there. She had been a gardener, and your yard had been the envy of the neighborhood. Her dahlias had been big as dinner plates, once. You could hear Mrs. Mackenzie asking her for the secret, but you knew there wasn't one. She'd just always had an instinct for that sort of thing. You couldn't teach someone gentleness. You looked down at your own hands. They hadn't lasted a season in your care. Things died with you. This was truth.
The kitchen, too, had always been hers. She had always had a new recipe for you to try, and she'd even won a blue ribbon at the county fair for her cherry pie. You had wanted to display it, but she wouldn't hear of it. She'd been modest to a fault.
“Stop,” she said, laughing. “I do it because I like to bake. That's all.”
“But I'm proud of you,” you said. “Yours was the best! We can frame it and hang it right here in the hall.”
“No,” she said, turning serious. “I don't care about any of that. I only entered for fun. Forget about it.”
Forget about it … but you can't, because everything that she has ever said or done has already happened, and you must savor it. She has gone, and left you with the ashes of your life. It was never supposed to be this way. You are not the strong one. You are not meant to be alone, aching, without her. How can you forget a single thing? There is nothing left for you save the sickening quiet of an empty house with no one left to ever warm it for you with her laughter or her pies or her dinner plate dahlias.
The deafening silence falls away and you cry, the only sound you can't bear to hear. Will it ever stop, this mindless misery? You think that she was perhaps the lucky one, after all, and you wait to fall asleep and wake to another gray day without her.
Author: Keppiehed
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Word Count: 572
Prompt: Ya'aburnee: Arabic incantatory word that means You bury me. It's a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before a loved one, because of how difficult it would be to live without them.
A/N: Written for week #4 at Brigits_flame. I'd like to say that this prompt hit upon one of my personal fears, something that I always very selfishly have worried about. I can think of little else worse in this world than to be tied to such terrible grief and suffering, and it from that perspective that I give you this especially angsty piece!
You never minded the silence, not until that was all you heard. Then it became a shroud, something you wanted to cast off but couldn't because it was so thick it smothered you. It was the other presence in the house, in the very air you breathed. Silence sat across from you at the table, ate your toast with you and stole your thoughts when you tried to concentrate. It distorted the ticking of the clock until you couldn't listen anymore; you heard nothing at all except your own loneliness, echoing.
It didn't used to be that way, of course. That was a slippery slope. Before. There was danger of falling into memories, bright as baubles. They might not let you out, and one day you'd be blank-faced, unable to come back from the void that was your own mind these days. Would that be so bad? you wondered. But there were dark things in there, things that you didn't want to remember. And so you were careful to take out that box only rarely, on days when you thought things were good and you could keep in the light.
But on those days, oh. There were some splendors to behold. This house used to be a home. You let your gaze fall past the curtains, past the glass in the panes to the yard. There had been life there. She had been a gardener, and your yard had been the envy of the neighborhood. Her dahlias had been big as dinner plates, once. You could hear Mrs. Mackenzie asking her for the secret, but you knew there wasn't one. She'd just always had an instinct for that sort of thing. You couldn't teach someone gentleness. You looked down at your own hands. They hadn't lasted a season in your care. Things died with you. This was truth.
The kitchen, too, had always been hers. She had always had a new recipe for you to try, and she'd even won a blue ribbon at the county fair for her cherry pie. You had wanted to display it, but she wouldn't hear of it. She'd been modest to a fault.
“Stop,” she said, laughing. “I do it because I like to bake. That's all.”
“But I'm proud of you,” you said. “Yours was the best! We can frame it and hang it right here in the hall.”
“No,” she said, turning serious. “I don't care about any of that. I only entered for fun. Forget about it.”
Forget about it … but you can't, because everything that she has ever said or done has already happened, and you must savor it. She has gone, and left you with the ashes of your life. It was never supposed to be this way. You are not the strong one. You are not meant to be alone, aching, without her. How can you forget a single thing? There is nothing left for you save the sickening quiet of an empty house with no one left to ever warm it for you with her laughter or her pies or her dinner plate dahlias.
The deafening silence falls away and you cry, the only sound you can't bear to hear. Will it ever stop, this mindless misery? You think that she was perhaps the lucky one, after all, and you wait to fall asleep and wake to another gray day without her.