Ever After

Just as quickly as it came it was gone. A glimpse into a past that he no longer lived. A love that was forsaken from the beginning just like every other part of him. It had started young. He was a precocious child with those around him recognizing his exceeding talent at a young age. He was the first in his class to learn to read, he was better than everyone else at math and science, he could solve the most complex puzzles, he could do so many things, but one thing he never managed was to fit in. His teachers marveled at him, called him a genius, but for all his intelligence he was devoid of something that truly mattered to him: human connection. His father had left before he could remember and though his mother did her best she was too busy providing for him, too busy making sure they could survive to give a boy of his nature the attention he needed and deserved. The little attention he did get could not nurture his maturation. He slowly faded into the shadows, a diamond in the rough. The one friend he had his whole life was in this picture, but even she had left him. They had met when he was 8 years old. He remembered looking out at his peers enjoying themselves during their break from another day at school when she had come and sat next to him. Taken aback he had been unable to think of what to say. "Hi, my name is Sally." She had said. He couldn't remember what his response was, or if he even had a response for that matter. All he knew is that he instantly felt a connection to this girl. He could see in the gentle curls of her golden brown hair something that was similar to him. She in someway, though he didn't know then what way, was just as damaged as him. Perhaps it was a smile, perhaps it was reciprocation of the simple introduction, but they became the best of friends. The others would make fun of them, but they didn't care. They were two pieces in a puzzle carved with the precision of a laser fitting together perfectly, each incomplete without the other. So it had been for a long time. They learned and grew together reaching high school and though it went unspoken, unnamed their relationship grew stronger and evolved with their own beings. As they changed so did the nature of their relationship. Friendship nurtured by the same sense of isolation that greeted each of them when they got home grew into love. They dated throughout high school and when it finally came time to pick a college they found a way to be together. Though he was her intellectual superior he had become unable to function without her companionship. She was more independent, but he made her feel safe. The young boy had grown and become transformed into an imposing being. He stood six feet four inches tall, weighing a healthy two hundred and twenty pounds. Though not muscular, his body was well toned. A gentle gristle grazed his face and his short light brown hair completed his look. He was not graced with the beauty of a model, but was superior to the average man. He was in every way what she wanted.

After the graduated college they were married. He started his job as an engineer working for a defense company. He would come home everyday and gaze into her eyes. A happiness would flood him as he imagined their life, their happily ever after. Usually so focused, coming home allowed him to escape the work he did. The work that earned him that corner office, the same one he sat in staring out the window, the watching the sun set thinking of years gone by when he would have been right there next to her. They're legs would be dangling carelessly over the edge of the cliffs, her head would rest gently on his shoulder and they would smile and stare in wonder at one of nature's greatest miracles. A small, almost sly smile started to make its way across his lips only to be interrupted by the loud ringing of his telephone. What now, he thought to himself. As if I don't sacrifice enough for these people they can't leave me in peace for just a moment. He answered the phone in the same calm, collected manner he always did, "Hello, Jim speaking." A look of horror crossed his face as he found himself longing for sunsets past, for moments long forgotten. His calm resolve was replaced by horror as he grasped for reason in a world of hurt.

The Picture

They had always told him never to return if he ever got out. Good thing he had listened to them. Where were they now? They had all fallen by the wayside. If his childhood had left him with anything, they had taken it with them as one by one, they disappeared and he was left with the nothingness he had come from. Why did they leave? He hadn't changed. Had he? He didn't even know anymore. He lay on the bed, allowing himself to sink momentarily into the hopelessness that had been tugging at the corners of his mind for so long, he couldn't even remember when it had begun. How nice it would be to just let himself go. After all, there was nothing left for him here, or anywhere for that matter. As the pool of despair engulfed his senses, threatening to drown out even the intermittent gunshots in the alley below, he looked around wildly, hoping beyond hope for something, anything to hold on to; something to which his wretched existence could cling to avoid slipping beyond the point of no return. A flash of light startled him out of his ever-deepening stupor of self-loathing. It was nothing but a beam of light reflecting off his treasured sign that vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him in the never ending darkness. As he turned to lie back down on his bed and allow himself to wallow in his own despair, a dusty picture caught his eye. Almost completely hidden behind the sign and an old leather dog collar, he had forgotten the picture was there. Though the picture was worn and faded like everything else in his life, the face of the woman in the picture shone with such love and vitality that his legs seemed to melt from underneath him and something stirred in the empty cavity where his heart had been.