Story: We Never Talk
I actually wrote this earlier in the year but haven't gotten around to actually posting it until now. - Kelly
"We never talk," she mumbled bluntly staring down at her double shot of spiced rum.
The sweet-bitter taste went down smoothly leaving some warmth left in her as she poured herself another one.
"Well, it is kind of hard," he stated easily, sitting in the stool next to her at the bar.
"No," she mumbled quietly again. "All you have to do is listen." She closed her eyes to keep her head from spinning and her reality stable. "You never listened. You never did listen!"
An amused laugh erupted from him. "Well," he started, playing with the bar napkin in front of him, "You knew I was never a good listener when you decided to become my wife."
"Quit making this about me!" she yelled angrily. "It was never about me! This is about us. Us!"
"Lower your voice," her husband advised softly.
She smirked rebelliously and a drunken cackle erupted from her.
"Who the hell is going to hear me? I am drinking in a bar where no one is here except you or me. This liquor. This liquor is my liquor. No one else's. We own this bar! I own this damn bar! I think I should be allowed to drink my own alcohol in my own bar without any customers, don't you?" she finished vehemently and finished off the shot in one easy gulp.
She gazed around the bar. Her and her husband had worked so hard to get this place off the ground. Instead of the place's usual loud, bolstering, clamorous customers, it sat silent in early evening with a few lit lambs scattered through out the building with her and her husband just sitting at the bar.
She turned her focus back to her drink. As she reached out to pour herself another shot, she stopped as her husband suddenly called, "Don't you think you've had enough?"
"I know when I need to stop," she slurred, delicately pouring more spiced rum in her double shot glass.
"How much have you had?"
"How many double shots to a bottle of rum and a half bottle of tequila?"
"Quite a few."
"That's how many. I see no reason why I should stop. You know I usually never drink. I'm very modest. I'm a social--what is it? Social..."
She cackled at her own lame joke, glancing at her husband to see if he found it funny too. She frowned to see he merely shook his head.
"Social drinker, sweetie. I know, but you could always hold your liquor."
"Nice to know," she replied, finishing the next shot of rum easily. She paused momentarily as the burning sensation passed. "It was a funny joke."
"Not really."
"Yes it was. Quit being such a..." she paused in thought, pouring another shot and downing in an instant. "Party pooper? Party pooper. Quit being such a party pooper!"
"Why do you do this to yourself, Rachel?"
"I don't know." She recalled she suddenly had the urge to start drinking early in the afternoon. She didn't remember why. "To feel. To feel something," she concluded.
Her husband watched with interest as she sluggishly pushed the glass aside, and become startled when she heard the glass falling off the counter of the bar and crashing to the ground on the other side. He cringed at the sight of his wife being so weak. She made an attempt to find a towel by leaning across the bar, but she almost fell over onto the broken glass if she had not caught herself. "Shit!" she mumbled angrily to herself, settling her head in her arms.
"Sleep, Rachel. Go upstairs to the apartment and sleep."
"Why?"
"You'll feel better."
She considered for a moment, trying to piece the logic of it together. Everything was a puzzle. Everything needed to be solved. There was a method to everything. Why would she feel better? She felt horrible, and she didn't know why. All she knew was that drinking allowed her to feel something...it was supposed to make things better. But it didn't. It only made things worse.
"All right," she consented in a slurred, quiet voice.
Her husband watched from a distance as she got up unassisted and stumbled her way to behind the counter and made her way to the back store room where a pair of steps led upwards to a small studio apartment.
"You remember the ridiculous idea?" she asked.
"Of course. We sold our old apartment, took out a huge loan from the bank, and created the best little pub and renovated the dismal second floor into a studio apartment," he replied, following her slowly upstairs. "The best idea we ever had besides getting married."
She smiled absent mindedly. "Even though I am drunk. Very drunk. I still feel nothing. I felt nothing today, even when I was sober. I don't know why I started drinking." She stumbled on a step and leaned against the door frame for support as her reality spun further and further from her.
"I never meant to hurt you," he mumbled softly, yearning so badly to touch her, to tell her everything would be better.
"Well, it comes with being human. No one is perfect," she replied inaudibly, making her way to the bed.
She collapsed on the bed in a heap of dead weight. She felt so cold as she absent mindedly pulled a blanket tightly around herself like a cocoon.
"Why don't you touch me?" she mumbled, realizing for an instant that the entire time they talked, he never touched her. He didn't even make an attempt to help her walking up the stairs or steadying her while trying to grab the bar tool.
"It isn't personal, Rachel." His hand hovered over her cheek and she felt a shudder. Why was she so cold?
"What are you doing?"
"I am saying goodbye...and that I still love you. I always will. You'll see me again one day."
"Where are you going?"
"Away, Rachel. Just for awhile. You'll see me again one day. Now sleep. You'll feel better in the morning." He kneeled beside her, gently kissing her forehead. She shivered again as if felt like a cold caress on her forehead. "I will always love you. Remember that. I love you."
"Love you, too," she whispered.
In her drunken state, everything seemed to vanish, including her husband, as she closed her eyes and passed out.
The phone was ringing. She heard the phone ringing.
It echoed unnaturally through the early Sunday morning like nails on a chalkboard. Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest and with her hangover; it certainly was a day of rest.
The phone continued to ring and she pulled a pillow over her head to block out the ringing. Over the noise she tried to navigate her way through the foggy sea of memories. What did happen?
Oh, yes, she though sourly, she decided to get wasted with her buddies rum and tequila. Why though?
The phone continued to ring incessantly and interrupted her thoughts. Reluctantly, she picked up the ticking time bomb.
"Hello?"
Her voice was muffled and she frowned under her pillow still over her head.
The voice on the other line was distant but she could just barely recognize the voice asking for her.
"Ma'am, I am with..." Rachel frowned as she missed the fragment of conversation. "...and we are calling about your husband."
"What about him?"
"His plane...down."
Damn it to hell! She couldn't hear anything properly. She couldn't make sense of anything. "Could you repeat that please?" she asked, a little unsure of herself.
"...plane...down."
"How? He was..."
She stopped memories coming back. Business trip. Be back Sunday. He was here last night though. He was here Saturday night
"He was her last night. Not possible..."
"Ma'am, we found a few bodies where the plane crashed. Dental records indict he was among them..."
Her mind had cut off and she was no longer listening. Numbness. The same emptiness she had felt about noon yesterday. Her lips moved and words formed without guidance. "What time... what time did...did this...happen?"
"About noon..." the operator replied and continued to run off a series of numbers.
She still was not listening though. A strange peace had come over her. Some sort of strange closure. And she knew.
Thoughts, picture, and design © Kelly [me]