A simple man’s great loss

He wakes up and reaches for her but his hands only find cold sheets. Why are they cold? There’s a breeze. He opens his eyes to look towards the window but all he sees is a dim white light. Something is covering his eyes. He reaches for it and touches soft, marred skin. A thick puss has crystallized in the corners of his eyes. He pushes the thickness aside and mistakenly brushes his cornea. He doesn’t feel a thing. A sickness starts low in his stomach as he presses with more force into his destroyed eyeballs. A scream is stifled as it attempts to escape and his stomach pain grows deeper. He scrambles to the edge of the bed and slips off. His immediate panic and loss of context only exacerbate the sickness and push it into his lungs. Struggling for breath, the blinded man slowly picks himself up to stand next to the bed. Something else has happened. It’s why the window is open. His breathing is shallow and measured as he moves hands across the bed once more. There’s no one there. He listens for her but his wheezing drowns out the silence in the room. She’s not here and she isn’t coming back. Unconsciously, he touches his ruined eyes. She’s made sure he’ll never find her. His lungs lock up in shock with the realization. He tries to pull the air in through his mouth. He vomits.

Hours later, the middle-aged man sits in a rocking chair that is too small for his bulk. The mixture of anger and sorrow is almost too hard to bear. So he sits and thinks about nothing. Just stares at the room that was hers for those twelve short years. He took her off the streets when she was just eight and gave her the care that only a real lover could give…showed her what was best for her…she fought for awhile but once he taught her how to make love she stopped fighting…until today.

He jumps up and throws the chair smashing against the wall. It’s his own fault for trusting her. She said she’d make a home-cooked meal and then give him the best sex he’d ever have. She wore him down with promises until he let her go into town for the day. With all her promises, of course she’d come back. He doesn’t remember anything after the drinks.