Morning all. We had thunder and lightning roll through all last night but not a single drop of rain fell within sight of our house. Or more importantly our garden. Thunder is rumbling again today, but I still had to water the garden. It felt very strange. Still strange or not, it is time to get this day started. So stretch those brains it is time to sprint for a fifteen minute writing run. Ready? Good. You can imagine your own starter’s pistol.
I like this, because I kind of like having characters start to rebuild after the ground got knocked out from beneath them, but I suspect that something else is afoot. And I will probably have that sit in the back of my head until lunch time when i will go another fifteen minutes to see what comes out.
Tuesday, June 6th: Everything he had ever relied on was gone.
Everything he had ever relied on was gone. He stood in the empty apartment and looked around. His last remaining relative died and while he was out settling the estate and seeing that final wishes were kept, Donna left. He blinked and slowly meandered through the space. She took all of the furniture and artwork. There were a few pieces that had been his when they moved in, but they had little monetary value and he had little emotional attachment to them. They were chosen because he could no longer stare at the blank walls of the place he lived in before this. They served their function.
‘If she wanted them, she can have them,’ he thought. He certainly wouldn’t fight to get them back. The kitchen was similarly bare. It was only in the bedroom that he found anything. While all of the furniture was gone, his clothes, toiletries and personal items were neatly packed. The personal items she didn’t want such as charging cords for his electronics and a few odds and ends, were placed in a small box. His toiletries were in his travel case and his electronics all stowed neatly in his laptop bag. When he opened his suitcase, he found all his clothes smelled of the laundry detergent and were neatly folded.
‘She did my laundry before packing my things and leaving me.’
He stared at the neat folds and freshly laundered garments. It somehow fit oddly with the text message he received less than an hour ago letting him know she was leaving. His plane landed and on his way to the car with his luggage, the phone beeped with the message. As this sort of moving took time he suspected she monitored the flight information and only sent the message when she was certain he made it through baggage claim.
He closed the suitcase and wandered through the other rooms. The scent of cleaning sprays greeted him. ‘She moved out and cleaned so the deposit could be returned.’ The lease was in his name and he paid the full deposit. It fit with the laundered clothes, but not with the text message.
‘And not with the leaving.’
She knew he was having a hard time with the fact that the last of his family was gone. His family, once a vast horde seeming unending in numbers had been whittled down by time, disease and circumstance until he was all that remained. Slowly the family properties were sold off and the pins that kept him fastened to the map were pulled away. She knew he was feeling rootless and off balance.
She knew he was questioning so many aspects of his life and that he was feeling the weight of singularity.
‘And this is when she left.’
He paused in the hallway and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He looked at the message. It was simple. ‘I am leaving. I will not be back when you get home. I am gone and do not want to see you again. I am sorry it had to be this way.’
He felt stunned at the airport and knew that if he could just speak to her she could explain. Yet there was no one here to do the explaining and ample evidence that she meant what she said. He thought about sending a message back, but didn’t feel steady enough at the moment to type the words. Instead he gathered his things and took them down to the car. He would speak to the landlord and then he would find someplace to go for the night. Clearly he could not stay here.
Ten til Midnight 