“Hi Gem” the email stated as Gemma scanned her mailbox.

Great. What was her slithering team leader up to now? She knew Gemma hated the nickname ‘Gem’.

What the?!! Her entire team was copied in the email!

“I trust you will withdraw your application for the new project. You only recently resumed work after your, longer than expected, medical leave. Others have worked hard, awaiting this career-changing opportunity.”

Gemma clenched her jaw. She had survived. Fully recovered. She would damn well do this project.

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Farani ignored the light tremor of her mother’s hands as they opened and uncovered a set of earrings. Each golden stud carried a finely crafted rose cut citrine gemstone that reflected yellow sparks.

Farani looked at her mother questioningly.
“I finally cleaned up his desk.” Her mother smoothed an imaginary tablecloth. “I found these in his drawer.”

“Oh….” Farani pushed back the lump in her throat.

“I am sure…” her mother paused, “that he bought you these for your birthday.”

With a quivering smile, she placed the studs in Farani’s hand. She looked her daughter in the eyes and just nodded.

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Can happiness that is lost be replenished? Or does everyone have a finite amount that, once gone, can never be attained again? If so, how was she supposed to sit through another dinner with nothing more than a forced smile? These thoughts kept popping up in her head while she watched him eat during their weekly dinner at his favorite restaurant.

By the sounds of his smacking and chewing, he was, as always, enjoying his rare steak. Tonight, the steak was served with pepper sauce and pommes gratin. He took another bite of the dripping red meat and moaned audibly. She flinched and averted her gaze.

She resumed twirling her fork around aimlessly in her truffle pasta, the only vegetarian option on the menu. She couldn’t get herself to take a bite. His appetite however, was insatiable. He gulped down another bite and belched.

She moved around in her chair. ‘Truthfully, I cannot stand to see you eat so much meat.’ He smirked and dangled a bite of steak, blood dripping, in front of her. ‘You mean this glorious piece of cow?’ Still grinning he brought the fork to his mouth and started chewing. He smacked his lips, obviously enjoying every juicy bite.

She pushed her chair back resolutely and stood up. ‘I’m done’. Her voice was calm but stern. It reminded her of her mother’s voice.

He looked at her with an expression of both indignation and incomprehension. ‘What are you doing? Where are you going? Sit!’

‘No. I’m done’. She looked him straight in the eyes. ‘We’re done’.

She dropped her napkin on the table and walked out. She already felt lighter. Her every step seemed electrically charged with new energy. Her happiness had not vanished, it had just been covered by gory slabs of red meat.

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The veterinarian had told her to finish the entire bottle of medicine. From yesterday, her small black tabby cat was moving around all right again.

She had wanted to stop administering the medicine today as it made the little creature drowsy. However, her friend Linda had insisted that she strictly followed the vets’ orders. Reluctantly, she had given in.

Just as she opened the front door for Linda who was coming over, the cat slipped out. Disoriented, yet incomprehensibly fast, the cat wobbled towards the street. The night was too dark and the car approached too quickly. And the cat? The cat was dead.

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We were only four hours into what was an island-wide power outage. The power wasn’t expected to return any time soon. Our phone batteries had died. The candlelight of some old candles, found in a moving box, provided a pinch of light in the otherwise pitch-black night.

We were the first, and currently only, inhabitants of the housing project. What had drawn us here, a secluded area with bushes, cacti and mysterious rock formations that sheltered birds, lizards, iguanas and other small animals, was exactly what currently repelled us. We jumped at all the unfamiliar rustling and shrieking sounds surrounding us. Suddenly, I felt my hair lifting on my nape. I instantly knew we weren’t alone with small animals anymore.

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She felt her blood rush from her toes up to her head. Mesmerized, she stared at the woman through the café window. The woman waved the Uber-driver goodbye and started walking towards the café. Their eyes locked. She felt herself drowning all over again in those dark, greyish blue eyes.

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She always knew he kept a journal. She thought that was something that only teenage girls or burnt-out women did.

She remembered the first time she found him in the bedroom, leaning against the headboard, alone with his thoughts, pen and journal. She had felt a sharp sting in her stomach but never pressed him to share his writings.

Over the years, she had never noticed that there weren’t any full journals stacked anywhere. Until today. She had heard a unexpectedly loud ‘thump’ as the mailman pushed an envelope through their mail slot. It had ‘Return to sender ’and ‘Stop this!’ written all over it in thick red ink.

Her heart beat violently as she tore the envelope with the unfamiliar address open. It was one of his journals. She started reading. A gasp escaped her lips as she realized that exchanging journals was also something that lovers did.

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Ahh, hello…She heard the rustling of the leaves and held her breath in anticipation. Her mouth was already dry. Still, she swallowed out of habit.

She heard the faint sound again. It was moving towards her, seeking her out patiently. As smoothly as an ocean wave on a quiet afternoon, the breeze traveled through the green foliage of the trees, shaking its branches and rustling its leaves. The breeze produced a gentle melody resembling one of her favorite childhood lullabies.

The breeze gently circled her feet before slowly moving up. Its light touch caressed her bare skin as once her lovers hands had: moving from her ankles to her thighs, circling around her hips and sliding up between her breasts. The breeze kissed her neck, her lips, her nose, the top of her head. Finally exhaling, she joined the breeze on its journey in the pink, orange and purple skies.

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It was unlikely that she would be overcome with sadness once he finally died. Lately, she would diligently practice several sad facial expressions in the bathroom mirror after her morning shower. She only wished she could produce real tears as to mimic the steam drops rolling down her reflection.

Their union was until death do them part. She had happily said ‘yes’. However, before fitting into that wedding dress or carefully slipping the ring onto his finger, no one had ensured that she understood, in layman’s terms, what this ‘yes’ really meant.

No one had pointed out that the road towards death, especially nearing the end, was paved with ghastly ambushes made by dreary memories and dark ghosts from the past.

Annoyances big and small that, irrespective of different time lines, sought each other out, stuck together and formed thorny tumbleweeds that hurled themselves against her already fragile, aging and tired body. The weeds scraped open old, long forgotten scars. Abhorrently, they also cut fresh new wounds.

Still, it was the searing, almost oxygen defunct air on that road, that weighed her down most. The oxygen had been sucked out over a lifetime of conserving the ideal of her marriage at any cost. Her young stubbornness that had shut out feelings of hurt, doubt and yearning. Her inability to acknowledge that she was slowly choking in an atmosphere of her own making. Her inertia once this truth sank in.

Now there was only her reflection in the bathroom mirror. A reflection that showed loss. Just not the loss of him.

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