283 Pages Falling Down to Earth

Papers.

A snowstorm of white pages with insignificant black specks.

She’s screaming something, but you can’t quite understand her. She’s lost in the jungle of sheets floating to the ground.

You stare, not understanding. Uncomprehending.

She’s screaming and pointing. A cigarette is still smoking on the ash tray shaped like a palm tree that you bought from Mexico many years ago. There is an eerie quiet, the only sound you hear a buzzing in your ears that sounds vaguely like her. The papers are still fluttering to the ground.

Your bottle of beer from last night is still on the table, next to the unpaid bills in their unopened envelopes, mixed in with thank you cards to be sent from years ago. The beer’s gone bad by now, surely undrinkable. There might be a fly in it even – or a moth. Those damn things are everywhere.

She’s crying. It’s last night. You set down the bottle of beer next to the unpaid bills in their unopened envelopes and you hold her close, smell the shampoo she used that morning and say nothing. You hold her until her rhythmic sobbing stops, and you both slide to the unswept floor.

She’s shouting and crying. She’s sliding to the unswept floor, surrounded by a whirling mess of papers. An unfinished, rejected novel. Your unfinished, rejected novel. She’s still pointing, spitting out accusations and condemnations and demands.

You stand, not understanding. Uncomprehending.

She screams; she rages.

A flash of coat, a swirl of blond hair, a final venomous look with emerald eyes.

The door slams behind her, swings open, and finds a comfortable place between open and closed.

It’s last night, and you’re in bed, her body in your hands and her scent in your nose. She kisses your forehead, makes a promise she breaks in seventeen hours. You curl up to her warmth, and you fall asleep.