“Are you coming?”
It is the question that is keeping him awake tonight. He stares at the empty space next to him in the bed, and rubs his hand along the pillow that once held her resting head. It still smells like her.
“It’s not your fault,” his physiatrist told him
“Stop blaming yourself,” said his friends. It is no use. Tonight, just like every night since it happened, he cannot help but feel the guilt that washes over him, drowning him in a sea of what-ifs.
At long last, he decides that he can’t take it anymore. He sloughs off the blanket, and climbs out of his bed, placing his bare feet on the cold, hard-wood floor. If she was here, she would ask him what he was doing.
“Nothing dear,” he tells the empty bed.
The floor creaks with each new step he takes. As he exits the bedroom, he looks down the hallway and notices the light leaking from beneath the bathroom door. For a brief moment, he sees her. It is an image he has seen many times on the many mornings before it happened. She stands there, in her long flowing nightgown to welcome him into the waking world with a cup of coffee and a smile. Then she is gone.
He takes a deep breath, rubs the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger for a moment, then continues down the hallway. Pictures of her stare at him from the wall as he passes by.
He stops at his office door. Part of him expects he will open the door and see her doing as she had so often done, rearranging his books in alphabetical order. It is a trait he finds annoying and yet, endearing at the same time. He would explain to her again that he preferred his books in chronological order. Then she would smile and gently shake her head at his oddness. When he opens the door, his office is painfully empty. His books line the shelves just as he had left them. His heart falls.
He enters the office, leaving behind the cold, wooden floor, for the warm softness of the carpet. It is the very same carpet he had fought so hard against getting. The small trace of a smile appears on his unshaven face. The battle had lasted a week, but in the end, as always, she had won.
He walks to his desk. It is cluttered with coffee cups and old cigarette butts. She had begged him to quit smoking and he had always promised he would. His promise was fulfilled the day of the accident. Since that day, he hadn’t even felt the craving for a cigarette. He only wishes he had quit sooner.
He pulls his chair out from under the desk and sits down. The cold leather sends chills up his naked back. Her radiant face peers at him from behind an empty coffee cup. He reaches out and gently pushes the cup aside, revealing the whole picture. It was taken the morning he had surprised her with a new car. Now the car is gone, smashed to oblivion in the middle of some junk pile, and so is she.
He feels burning tears coming to the surface but like all the times before, he fails to cry. Everything about the room reminds him of her. All of her “feminine touches” as she liked to call them, the bowl of potpourri that sits on the corner of his desk, the red ribbon hanging from the doorknob in a little bow. At first these and other items bring to mind loving memories, but the memories always seem to turn into daggers that cut right into his soul.
He turns and opens the top drawer on the side of the desk. He looks inside at the mess of disheveled papers and pens. None of this interests him anymore. He pushes the bulk of the papers aside, and uncovers what he is looking for.
The shining metal surface glimmers in the darkness of the drawer. He grabs hold of the item by it’s black handle. The color reminds him of death, and the inside of her coffin.
He bought the device for protection. He had never needed to use it before. It wasn’t much help when the drunk driver behind the wheel of a semi truck, crossed the median andplowed headlong into oncoming traffic, but perhaps it could serve a purpose now.
He places the device on top of the desk. He sees her picture again, but this time she is staring at him imploringly. He reaches over and places the photo face down. She shouldn’t see what he is about to do.
“Is it time?” He hears her ask.
“Time is an old bald cheater,” he answers. He can’t remember where he has heard this, but it’s true. Time tends to make you think it will last forever. It leads you down the road, dancing merrily along, until you cross at the wrong intersection, or meet the wrong person after you have taken a wrong turn, and then WHAM. Time is no more. Does time care? Does it shed a single tear? No. Time is cold, heartless, and unforgiving. When you’re gone time goes on without you, leading others to their same grisly demise.
He reaches forward and picks up the gun. All of a sudden it is heavier than he remembers. It’s as if all of his hopes, dreams, doubts, and fears were all concentrated into a single bullet, but in a moment they will all be released. With one tiny, deliberate action, the pain will go away. He pulls the gun toward him, and looks into the eye of this creature of solace. He welcomes it. He places the nozzle of the gun into his mouth, and lets it rest on his tongue. The taste of gun-oil is a little off-putting, but that will be of no consequence. His thumb gently pulls back the hammer, which registers a soft click when it is locked into place.
As he places his thumb on the trigger, she appears in the doorway. “Are you coming?” She asks. Those words, spoken by such an angelic voice, summon up the most painful memory of all. He doesn’t remember where she was going, or why. All he can remember was that she had wanted him to go with her. It would have taken an hour at the most, nothing compared to a lifetime. He had told her that he was busy working. She asked once more. He said no.
If he had gone, maybe she would still be alive. Maybe they would still be able to have the children she had always wanted. Maybe they would have lived a long and happy life, growing old together. Maybe, maybe, maybe, his mind is swimming in them. His mind is too bombarded to tell him to stop, his burning heart, urging him on.
Suddenly, the tempest that has been tearing his soul apart stops. He sees her as clear as day, And she asks one question.
“Are you coming?”
A tear forms. The warmness of it flowing down his cheek provokes more. The nozzle of the gun is pulled away, and the gun falls to the floor. Although she is blurred by the torrent of long-repressed tears, she is still there.
He answers, “Not yet.”
He then leans forward with his face in his hands, and does what he has been unable to do for far too long. With the light of the rising sun peeking in through the window behind him, he cries.
