Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BORED - Begins 1-11-18 / Ends 1-18-18 (01/11/18)
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TITLE: A Single Word | Previous Challenge Entry
By Maxx .
01/17/18 -
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I turned the knob and pressed into the dimness.
Kali sat on the corner of our bed, facing away, her gaze following the disappearing sun through the unwashed window.
“I think we –.” I grimaced and dipped my head, my voice tepid and weak. I cleared my throat while trying to straighten stooped shoulders. “Can we talk?”
She tugged at the scraps of a Kleenex balled in her hand. The blood red shards of a sunset come too early spattered her cheeks and hair.
I placed my palm against the door jamb to steady myself.
Her silence spoke a lethal soliloquy.
A heavy, thickening sensation like coagulating tar tightened about my gut, sapping my remaining crumbs of hope. “I’m still here. For you. For us. And I’ll stay, if you want me to. But only if you want me.”
She stared at the horizon, unmoving.
My breath caught as a suffocating memory engulfed me. The angry shouts of my parents thundering through the darkness of our childhood home. The terrified uncertainty of a six-year-old who instinctively recognized the unraveling of his innocence. The predestination of my own failure.
“Look, I don’t understand,” the edges of my tone became stained with desperation. “Is marriage to me not what you wanted? Do I bore you? Or demand too much? Maybe not enough?”
Kali shrugged, stoic and almost imperceptible. “I don’t know.” Her voice deteriorated to a whisper. “It doesn’t matter.”
“That isn’t any help to me. Don’t you see? It does matter. It matters the world,” I pleaded. “I need more. Something I can work with. I’ll do anything.”
She slipped away, lost again, her skin darkening with the fading of day.
“I make mistakes, I recognize that.”
A waning beam of light refracted through a tear clinging tenuously to the curve of her cheek.
“I can’t go on like this, Kali. Do you realize everything we hoped for, our dreams, are all dying?”
She turned her ashen face toward me, gaping mouth sunken into a frown. The russet in her eyes, once bright and lively, receded into a faded slag.
“I’m,” my voice stuck. “I’m sorry I could never reach you the way you need. I only ever wanted to make you happy. I did my best. I tried.”
The breeze pushed tormenting shadows across the slate sky.
I struck a fist against my thigh and lifted a creased brow toward the ceiling in a final prayer. “Then this is it, I guess. After everything, all we wanted. What else can I do?” I turned away. “I love you, but I have to say goodbye.” I staggered to the landing.
Kali wept.
I hesitated. “Can’t you give me anything? Not even a single word?”
Her jagged breaths tore through me like a dull blade.
I began to descend in the direction of the front door, to a scarred, shattered, solitary life.
“Wait,” Kali choked. “Wait.”
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I think most of us oldies would agree that we'd love to know your pen name so we can read your novels. Any chance you could let Deb know...?