The remaining hangers
clattered together as I tugged my jacket free, their empty bones
rattling out a final farewell. The whole cupboard was like a carcass
with the thin, white pole a spine. I had finally picked it clean. She
must have removed her clothes at some point earlier as if she
couldn't stand them to become further tainted by mine, like I would
cling to her forever as hidden fibres. That actually sounded about
right.
I slid the swollen
suitcase onto the floor and sat on the bed so I could press it down
under my Converse and wrench the zip around. I didn't even want any
of this stuff, I'd have taken it the last time if I had. I was just
tired of arguing; she said she wanted it out so out it was going to
go. The zip broke, not the teeth but the handle on the zipper came
off, so I tied it... with a tie.
I pottered around the
room, a room she'd returned to later but I (I had been told) would
never see again. My pictures hadn't been replaced, they were just
gone; far more damning. I toyed with some of her things, feeling
their weight and wishing for some memory to spark like it would in a
movie; a couple staring into a shop window from a sunny street, a
slender hand pulling a ribbon from a box, clothes dropping onto a
wooden floor around red high heels and the camera tracking away to
follow whatever had been knocked to roll across the planks. Nothing
came though. I pocketed a lipstick.
I found a pen and paper
and an envelope and I settled at the little desk beside the bed.
“You left me a
letter”
“Yeah”
“It was blank”
“It was written from
the heart”
No comments:
Post a Comment