The darkness of the small apartment was both real and unreal. She was there - but couldn't be there. It had to have happened - yet could never have happened. So how was it she stood with the dying rays of slit sun upon her dress, slowly ebbing into darkness?
The Endless Marriage was dead, wrecked by an Unthinkable Divorce. What remained of her entered this unitary cave called home, yet she hesitated to sit. No, this was not her home. Her life had not come to this. She was destined for better. It won't be real unless you sit down. The old familiar panic breathing invaded her veins once more. Trapped, always trapped. She was supposed to be free now. Free from what?
She had puked out the marriage like a hairball, no longer able to keep it down. For years she kept it forced down, damaging herself, knowing she could never ever live on her own. She'd suffer any indignity, any humiliation, any torment to keep her plastic life afloat. But when the dying time came, she refused the Reaper's call. Yet the Reaper's call cannot be denied, killing her marriage instead, carrying her to this current moment of unreality. What price for failing to answer?
Paralyzed in the middle of her 808 sq ft of domain, perishables hung in a plastic bag from her squeezing hand, waiting to be placed in their proper places. They couldn't understand what the holdup was. Life could not resume until they were appropriately sequestered. Had they been purchased for naught? To only make it this far but no further? Seemed such a waste.
This is not my store. After the move out, her neighborhood was all wrong. The cars slower, the brick older and the stores moldier. Not even to God would she admit her disheartened feelings as she entered this manmade monument to glaring fluorescence and scratched linoleum called a grocery store. She tried once going back to her old store, with the pretty people and fancy facades, but the long drive proved too aggravating to sustain. Here was like shopping in a post-apocalyptic world. A degraded life till the end of my days.
Still fixated in her spot, she noticed the bent blinds courtesy of the previous renters. They were a used and secondhand thing these blinds - just like she was now. She didn't want them. And who'd want her? She always told herself she could live without her material possessions in her 6,700 sq ft palace of excess. But luxury means approval and poverty disapproval from the gods. But I worship God, not the gods. The sun sunk lower as she failed to move.
When Moments of Darkness gripped her, choking her heart and drowning her soul, she retreated to the False Mirage of hope in her mind. Yes, she'd get her house back, her life back, her kids back - and most importantly, her lies back. Like any junkie, addiction was life and life was death. Oh-why-oh-why didn't she answer Death's call like she was supposed to? But time is the enemy of all lies and her mirage addiction lost its narcotic escape. Don't disappear, you're all I've got!
Alone was never supposed to happen. Unless you turn your back on God. She'd gotten a TV to watch, a radio to wake her, dishes to eat on, clocks for the wall and all the other required accessories for a kid moving out for the first time. None of it interested her. And at 41, she was no kid. Nineteen years wasted on a lie. The lie was a thief of not only her time, but of her looks and dreams. On the sea of life, she looked all around and saw no sign of a port. She cringed bitterly now at all the chances she refused for affairs - refuted to protect her claim of morality. Idiot! You refused life!
The sun journeyed on, leaving her to herself. Condensate sweated on the once cold carton of orange juice. It was the natural cycle of life and yet she doubted the sun would truly shine again. She prayed for death but death would not come. What's the point of anything now? To move and to not move are the same thing. But she was tiring of the fear and hiding and the tugging weight in her hand. The zombie groceries reached their final destination. So what now?
You made the wine, now drink the cup
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