Before I Remember: Middle of the Night

Four-forty-six in the morning, and some kind of awful, pained noise wrenched from the figure curled up on the kitchen floor.

The room was morning-dark, the faint light from the nearing sunrise filtering in the window and playing over his ragged pink bathrobe, dirty gray from the dust-bunnies that hid under cabinets, under tables, around chair legs.  He clutched a chipped and worn coffee mug, the design on it faded from years of use and washing, the inside stained a permanent brown.

His shoulders heaved as he curled in on himself, aching in ways that couldn't be cured.  His nails scraped against the avocado-coloured wall, that colour he'd always hated but had succumbed to after all those playful arguments.  He left marks in the paint, got flakes of it stuck up under his fingernails that he'd have to dig out later.

Something seemed to break as the tears started streaming down his face.

He'd gotten up, smelling coffee, that strong dark roast that had gotten so familiar over the years, had shuffled into the kitchen with a faint smile on, expecting to see that long and lean and freckled figure pulling a mug from the cupboard, toast hanging from his teeth.

No coffee, no toast, no tired yawn and hug hello- that had gone days ago, weeks, even.  He hadn't cried about it yet, had just soldiered on, the emotional rock that everyone had taken to depending on.  He'd hugged his in-laws, comforted his friends, refused all offers of help and had quietly sank into an awful sort of despair that hung foglike around him.  Everything became mechanical- wake up, go to work, make small talk, then come home and force himself to eat alone in the living room, the TV blaring some kind of drivel.

Once a newscaster had come on, a redhead with eyes like the forest and a smile like sunshine, and he'd had to turn it off and take a few breaths.

Some things were just too raw for him yet, too reminiscent of some treasured little memory.  He couldn't open his closets, couldn't go downstairs and take the laundry from the drier for fear he'd see a familiar pair of socks or underwear lying in wait for him, emotional vampires made of cotton-poly blend.

Eventually he'd go through everything, toss all the things that made him cry, someday leave the little starter house they'd rented together on some silly whim.  Too much pain, too few windows.

Someday he would eventually wake up and it would be all right.