Flashed!

Gone-1

Gone

From a side street a motorcycle zips out in front of him, cutting him off.

Jesus.

He slams on the brakes too hard and his Jeep Cherokee bucks beneath him, tires squealing in the bright autumn afternoon. His seat belt bites into his chest as he jerks to a stop and stares in disbelief at the unsuspecting motorcyclist, who revs his bike and zooms down the road and is gone.

Gone. He hates that word.

A faint breeze scurries fallen leaves across the street. Behind him, someone hits their car horn to tell him to get a move on, get out of the way. With trembling hands, he rolls up the window so he won’t feel the chill or hear the leaves or the horn or the motorcycle as it fades into the distance. He kicks the heat up another notch and the rush of air drowns out the music from the radio, faint like a half-remembered dream. His fingers fumble for the switch to turn on his hazard lights. Gone.

One by one the other cars edge around him. Some of the drivers glare his way—one yells out in passing, but he can’t hear the angry words. His windows are closed. He grips the steering wheel until his breathing evens and he doesn’t see the motorcycle careening out of control when he closes his eyes. His body isn’t any warmer for the heat, but that’s to be expected. He hasn’t been warm for a long time and he thinks he’s used to it by now, except for when he thinks of you.

He’s always thinking of you.

* * * *

Somehow he makes it home. The house he shared with you—the one place your memory lives on, so palatable he can almost touch you here. Sometimes, in his sleep, he reaches out but his fingers only brush empty air and he chokes back a sob. Then, in the morning, he wakes with his face buried in a damp pillow. Those days he calls in sick, saying he can’t make it to the office, not today…he hopes they understand.

They always do. Even now, almost a year later, they still understand.

When he comes into the house, he drops his keys on the table by the front door and kicks off his shoes. Your image smiles at him from a dozen photographs—you’re in every room, on every wall. Here in the foyer, you’re posing for the camera, a sunny smile on your face and a baseball cap crammed down over the mop of dredlocks you used to have. He remembers taking that picture minutes after you kissed him for the first time. It’s his favorite photo of you because he swears he can still see that kiss in your eyes.

Into the living room, where you stare up from the entertainment center, the bookcase, the coffee table. Scrapbooks and photo albums hide more images, more pictures, more you.

By the television, you’re holding him around the waist, the two of you laughing. He remembers Janice took that one, right after your first day at the firm. He loves you in it—your freckled shoulders, the way your white shirt pulls up out of the waistband of your jeans, exposing the smooth flesh of your back. He used to love to kiss you there.

By the couch, you’re pouting in this picture, a wonderfully glorious pout that can still make him ache to see it. On the wall leading into the kitchen, you have your hands folded together and you’re pointing at the camera with one finger, like a gun, bang you’re dead.

Bang. Gone.

The kitchen—you’re on the wall by the clock. The bathroom—a tiny snapshot is tucked into the corner of the mirror, curling now from too many steamy showers, too many hot baths that don’t warm him up completely anymore. The hall—a line of framed pictures, collages, each shot carefully fixed behind glass. And the bedroom—the only white on the walls is in your eyes or your smile or your shirt, the pale peach of your flesh, the bleached blonde of your hair when you used to wear it that way. Every inch of wall space is covered, taped over, and you stare at him from all angles each day and night, when he dresses, when he sleeps, when he lies on the bed and throbs for your touch and sobs your name into his pillows.

He doesn’t let anyone into this room. No one else knows about it, this shrine. Here it’s only you.

* * * *

He’s taking a nap when the phone rings. He sleeps a lot now—his mother worries about him. He’s sure it’s her on the phone. Every evening he comes home from work and lies down, doesn’t even eat some nights because when he sleeps, he dreams. In his dreams you’re there, waiting for him. He hates waking and leaving you behind.

The phone rings again. He blinks awake, stares at the long shadows crisscrossing the ceiling, and remembers the night you were riding home on your bike after a grueling shift at the restaurant where you worked when the phone rang. It woke him then, too—he had fallen asleep waiting for you to come home. When he answered the phone, he knew it had to be you calling, just to tell him not to worry. You always did that, just to say, “Hey baby, I’m on my way home. Just wanted to say I love you.”

Only that time wasn’t you. It was your sister Annie, her voice thick and strangled. “Come down here,” she’d said, near hysterics “You have to come down here. God, I don't know what happened, I didn't see the truck, it came out of nowhere and you need to get down here now, please, just come. There’s been a horrible, horrible accident.”

An accident. The only word he hates more than gone.

After that night, no matter how often the phone rings, will never be you.

So he doesn’t want to answer now. He knows it’ll probably be Annie, who’d stopped by the restaurant that night to ride along with you back to the house. Whenever she calls, she just starts apologizing all over again—she hasn’t stopped apologizing, as if it’s her fault. Her fault you loved that damn bike. Her fault the road was slick from the rain. Her fault the truck came around the corner too fast. Her fault you couldn’t swerve away in time.

Gone.

But it isn’t her. When he answers the phone just to stop the noise, it’s a coworker from the office, Brian. A nice guy, maybe a little too loud when he’s one cubicle over and sweet-talking to his lady on the phone during his lunch break, but Brian’s okay. For the most part.

But Brian wants to know how he’s holding up. He laughs at that. Holding up, as if he’s in danger of falling apart. Brian asks if he wants to go out tonight, just him and a few of the guys, a night on the town. They can swing by in a couple hours, pick him up, if he wants?

He doesn’t want.

Then here it comes. Brian tells him he needs to get out more, it’s what you’d want. He laughs at that, too. What’s anyone else know about what you would want? You’re not here to tell them. “I hate to see you like this.”

Me too, Brian. Me too.