Goodbye - Flash Fiction by Samuel R Wright

Goodbye

Passing through the doorway I enter the silent and dark room, that is yours, with ease. Within the velvet darkness I stop, then stand motionless, allowing the featureless void to surround me while I grow accustomed to the darkness within it.

I look around the room, I see the vanity and the shine to your personal history there. I approach, and admire the shrine you have created to your friends, your loves, your family and your accomplishments. There is barely enough room there for your makeup or the tools to apply it, but you have managed to squeeze them in.

I sit at the bench, the seat making no complaint at my presence on it, and I admire the pictures and baubles that lie there before me. Looking at all the things that you chose to be important enough to remember. A lock of hair, a toy from kid’s fast food meal, a comb with some broken teeth and a CD with some barely legible writing on it, surely containing some memories on it that you chose not to let go.

I lean forward and with your hairbrush only a breaths distance from me, I inhale deeply, taking in the scent of your hair and perfume. The two combined act on mind senses the way any intoxicating elixir would on the body. I arise and start to turn, but a picture on the wall behind the vanity catches my eye. Looking closer, I see that it is a picture of you with several people, myself among them.

I smile, remembering the day the picture was taken and all the possibilities that lay before us on that day.

I turn and begin following the wall around your room, looking at the pictures of flowers and animals, then the occasional portraits of people that you had started taking as one of your many hobbies. This one lasting longer than most before you grew onto something else that pleased you.

As I complete the circle of the room, I came to your bed. I watch as you lie asleep, breathing deeply, your consciousness held by a deep slumber. I listen to your breathing and feel drawn in by the rhythm, it being like a lighthouse in the dark shrouds that engulf the room. Your bed is next to a window and the moonlight entering there weaves with the darkness to create a quilt of mutes purple grey hues.

Moving closer to the head of the bed, I stand for a moment looking down upon your sleeping form, admiring the beauty of the moon reflecting in your hair, the blonde washed out by the colorless glow of the beams falling on you, leaving you looking like a pale princess with hair the color of alabaster and skin of porcelain, lying in wait for your prince to arouse you from Morpheus’ grasp.

Slowly I sit on the bed next to you. As with the vanity seat the bed offers no complaint to my weight and you offer no sign that my presence has disturbed you. So I sit, and watch you sleep. I cannot help but wonder what you are dreaming about as you lie there. Are you dreaming of me? Do you think of me even?

“Do you even know I am here or how much I love you?” I breathe the words more that speak them, afraid that I might be heard, yet wishing I was.

You let out a little mumble, but remain otherwise silent. Still lost in whatever places that slumber has taken you this silent evening.

I stand up, again careful not to stir you from your sleep. Knowing it is time for me to leave, I lean forward and place my hand on your cheek, and gently kiss you on your lips. Soft enough that you might mistake it for no more than a wisp of wind or the flutter of butterfly wings.

This time you stir ever so slightly and turn to your side, your hand opening and revealing a small scrap of paper. I lean in, looking closer and I can see my name on it, next to a picture of a crumpled car that had once been mine. I stand again and look down on you again.

“So I am not entirely forgotten?” I whisper.

You breathe something under your breath, but I am unable to understand the words. I hear you whimper a little and then sniffle.

I kneel down next to the bed, knowing it is time for me to leave, but wanting to hold onto the moment for as long as I can. I reach out and put my hand on yours and try to feel it, to feel anything.

“I am sorry,” I whisper again. “I was coming to see you, to take a chance and ask you to be mine. I love you so much.” I leaned forward and kissed you again, then whispered, “Goodbye.”

I remained there, as I felt my presence begin to fade, and then as I was almost gone, you opened your eyes, they almost seeming to see mine and looking into my soul, you then sat upright and cried, “Please no. Don’t leave. Not again.”

Those were my last visions of her, as I passed on. Her looking into me as I passed from her world into the next.

But I was at least able to say goodbye.