Six O’Clock Silence

1 As I drive through quiet, fog-laden streets of the city, I’m filled with memories of all you once meant to me and how it all turned out so wrong. I warned you. I taught you to fear. And ironically, it was me you came to fear. You couldn’t see the real me. All you saw was your idea of me. All you heard were my words of warning, but not what was in my heart. You were wrong. But I, too, was wrong to push you away. You and I never should have happened, but you sneaked up on me, wormed your way into my life, into my heart, with your goodness. Yet, you weren’t all that good, were you? If you were, you never would have cheated on the man you married. You didn’t love him, that was clear. You loved him once, or so you claimed, but as the years passed, you grew into a dull acceptance of life, of boredom. When we met, you said you had never known anyone like me. That I fascinated you with my silences, my strange life, and that I inflicted death on others with what you believed to be ease, and what I knew to be justice. You said you loved me, but more than that, you feared me—feared me not for what I was, but for all I had come to mean to you. I could not fight your fear. In the end, I sent you back to the life you despised. And you hated me for it. I vowed I would never contact you again, and made you promise me the same, even while knowing that together we were more than either of us is apart. I ignored your tears as I walked away, and I didn’t look back. I have always been a man of my word.