Reason

I can hear the way the whirring changes. The tone of it feels different. It’s a difference that I don’t think I noticed at first. Something about the realization of its alteration makes me worried that things have changed. Are changing.

For obvious reasons.

Last night, I lay awake and I wondered how different we really were. How less so we’ve become. Thoughts that paled in comparison to the idea of not proceeding.

I suppose the obviousness of the obvious is, at its core, an addiction. Or maybe a disease.
Doctor Frank Edmund Hubert says that addiction is a disease and I tell myself he’s lying and that he’s telling the truth in equal measure. I sometimes wish it were as simple as a syringe in my veins. Sometimes I wish it were anything but this.

Other days, I wish only to be back. To be back. To be back and back and back again.
Her voice comes in from the exterior and, even muffled, I know the words while my brain has yet to process them.

I have no belief in later. No concept of after. No idea that encapsulates the notion of not here and now. I reply with a groggy voice. One that’s made deeper than normal in my waking. I give a simple reply to a simple question.

It feels like it’s hours before I truly rise.

In the room without I see her and yet I don’t. It’s not a construct of aphantasia or delusion. She’s there just as much as I don’t see her. I see her just as much as she isn’t there.

I wonder when we stopped really seeing each other. I fear I started that trend and she simply followed suit. Maybe I just tell myself that. Maybe I just want to feel like there’s an answer to a question that has no answer. It’s the belief in god for the sake of later salvation. It’s a prayer before bedtime as though angels can shield us from a world of misery.

When I tell myself to hold her, I’m filled with reticence. Hesitation. There’s a latency between thought and action and there’s more so between reality and hope.

A figment of myself wants to grab her hand. To tell her that I’m sorry. For everything. For everything. For everything and more. I want to hold her so tightly that she thinks I mean to tell her that I’ve a terminal illness. I want to tell her I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so, sorry.

I ask her if there’s coffee and I saunter into the room beyond. The carpet beneath me feels both comforting and disconcerting. The framed pictures on the mantle are a blur.

For obvious reasons.

When the good doctor told me of my malady he offered very little. He suggested a prescription for something that I’m hopeful a pharmacy could comprehend. He suggested that I return in four months for a follow-up. He suggested – only at the most non-gentle of prodding – alternative remedies. He did so with a tone of voice that did not seem to agree with his suggestions.

The way it feels when I try to sleep seems wrong in all the worst ways. I wonder sometimes if it’s how she felt and I tell myself that no one could know that unless they were her. Still, I find myself spiraling into the idea of symmetry. Of cohesion. Of dislocation.

When the retinas of my eyes finally ease their malediction, I can look around and I can think. I feel like an echo of an echo at times. I think – if only in figmentation – of how she said that she hurt in places that she couldn’t explain. Moments like those make me ache in places that I can’t feel in this moment.
For obvious reasons.

She’s sitting upon a small, single-accommodating chair that looks very much like a loveseat was miniaturized and she’s reading a book or doing a crossword puzzle. Somehow, I can’t seem to place the cover or the pages or the movement of her hands.

My voice catches in my throat and I want to tell her I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry. I want to close the book in her hands and kiss her fingers and her knuckles and tell her that I…that I…
I sit blinking and the wall before me is several shades of deterioration more advanced than I wish they were. I blink long and hard. I blink quickly to shuffle the concepts of reality through my brain. I feel like I’m looking through one of those old-school View-Masters. Several interconnected images bound to a circle. Repeating.

I run my hands across the place where she used to be. The slight depression in the mattress holds her imprint. I tell myself that the home still holds her scent – the light misting of Eu de Tempe or whatever it was she wore when we went out on those sadly infrequent evenings. Sometimes I can only tell the difference in the aftermath.

To my side is a small, orange bottle of pills that mocks me with its quantity and refill capacity.
I can feel the phantom sting of her lips on my cheek and in the sadness of me caring far too little. The detriment of how I never tried as hard as I should have. As much as I should have. So tied to the idea of tomorrows that would never come.

I take another pill. My third today though the bottle says to never exceed more than one in twenty-four hours.

I feel my brain begin to boil and I feel the almost portal-like moment begin to take me. To take me back and back and back and back and back and back again. To when I could see her. To when I could touch her.

I tell myself that this time I’ll control my mind. I’ll force the memory of myself to say the things I never said. To do the things I should have done.

I tell myself that I can fix this. I can fix this. I can fix this. I can fix this.

When my eyes become heavy and the world blurs around me, I try to smile. I try to remember that, if nothing else, she’s here still. I try to remember all the syllables of her name and I’m struggling to do so.
I wonder if this was how it was for her at the end. I tell myself it wouldn’t matter if were.
My eyelids – heavy as iron – begin to close.

I can almost hear her voice again. It’s close enough. Close enough. Close enough for now. For me. For here.

A phantom song from a room that I’m neither in nor will ever be. A voice that sounds like angels singing. It says something that I can’t quite parse. Part of me wants to say something to say that I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry. To pull myself from my bed and to rush to where she is.

In the comfort of my bed – both within and without – I find the conflicting realms of reality. Part of me wants to rise and move. To tell her that I’m sorry. I’ve always been. I’ll forever be.

Instead, the me that appears rests and rolls his eyes. He sighs. He looks at the time of a clock that says nothing of how much time she has left in this world where she’s said nothing of her diagnosis. The me that is oblivious of reality then presses upon the me that is aware of the reality later.

The bottle says to not exceed one pill per day.

My desire to see her again says otherwise.

My hand looks pale in the light of this room and I can’t remember how long I’ve been here. I can’t remember. Remember. I can’t.

I miss her. I know that I miss her. If I try hard enough I can tell her. I know I can.

The dilapidated structure around me feels like a sentence for a life I don’t recall living. A world where I never held her close. Never touched her shoulder and kissed her forehead.

My eyes begin to clench with regret for a life that feels blurry and distant and I don’t care if it was or if I’m just remembering.

I let the pills touch my tongue and they’re sweet like nectar. Sweet like freedom. Sweet like liberation.
I tell myself that this time I’ll tell her that I love her. Whoever she is. Wherever we are. I love her. I love, love, love her.

For obvious reasons.

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Inspired by the prompt from Afterwards: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/68187415/posts/5124415084