Sandra – Short Story Written February 2001 (Aged 25)

Sandra

Do you count tears or do you just place them in a jar on the shelf so they are far away from prying eyes and thieving hands .

i should have known the kitchen window would tell a tale on me. With its pitter patter tune, dreary and monotonous. my hands a prop for the weary head, the one which is no longer hung in shame. The cheap pine kitchen table that had sparked in the showroom suddenly looked sad, creaking, with every movement. Its groans as sad as the knots on its legs.

Leaving is far easier than arriving. Arriving had been a slow entrance. Two skaters learning together, build tomorrow’s house out of hope with the foundations of dreams.

The rain seems to echo and bounce off the freshly laid patio outside. How long had it been since I was laid? Crude thoughts maybe, but when the arguing ceases and the insults of gunfire subsides, who is their to think of except yourself. in the battlefield of a relationship there are no prisoners. There is only bloody victims hauling their mauled emotions around a dying field.

Pools of water had begun to gather on the patio. Crazy paving for a crazy life with the cracks all too real. They appeared as maturity did, as soon as dreams moved into the spare room and life lost its backing of sweeping orchestras and instead, gained a scream.

As soon as dull reality dawned, so did the bags and as the children came, no one was to blame. i turned to the paper in front of me. I played with the biro, turning it around in my hand. like an attractive toy. The ink was almost at the top of the biro but I felt empty. The ink was my life, the strain, the pain, the strange. Ten years, a decade counting dates, counting days, counting months, counting years and now, now just counting seconds.

the tears escape easily but i never do. The rain continued outside, as cliched as it was. In the pathetic prison that was my life it suited me. The table bought out guilt because somebody had been screwing around, yet it was cheap and badly screwed together. It was all imitation, even the sofa was not real leather. The kitchen units were not real, the house were not real, the children I see, all I see is their loneliness and all I feel is their chill. I feel it in the morning when i pull their coats tight and I hug them tight. And all I do is dream of a day that does not feel like the night.

Behind the kitchen’s plastic façade was brick. The real building materials behind my façade was a bundle of unrealised dreams stacked like firewood burning away.

The children had gone to mother’s, it was all different now in fact it had all changed now. I grabbed the loose change from the emergency saucer dish that was always on the side. In fact just like everything was always there. I have a pre built flat pack life. The familiarity is mind numbing, you do not need to think when there is nothing to think about.

Suburban living was small individual prisons with emotional barriers preventing people from living. It is complete with dainty fences that have well been barbed wire. I turn back to the pine kitchen table and look at the paper, nearly an hour and I have written nothing down. The rain continues it impression of me and it’s impression is uncanny in its accuracy .

I took the pen, the final sweep of the sword, and with the sword I would do the final, final fatal piece of damage. In the end it was all so mu easier, so much more straightforward. As I left the house and closed the door behind me, I realised I was closing the door on an old life and I thought about the final message. The words I had managed to write down on that piece of paper.

I don’t love you anymore

Goodbye
Sandra