The day arrived like they always do. Full of things that needed done, but none I truly wanted to do. All I wanted to do was just sit in my little lonely corner and drift back into time. The time when he was alive.
It hadn't been that long. Truly it had not. Yet, it felt like it'd been ages ago. Another life, in fact. Well, perhaps, it had been another life. One not many people wanted to follow or needed to follow.
"What are you doing?" a voice from the darkness called out. I looked up and saw for the first time his flowing brownish almost blonde hair shining in the only light present in the room I occupied. Everywhere else was blackness including my own soul.
"Nothing," I remember replying.
"Why would anyone wanna sit in a dark empty room," he inquired as he passed his hand around the room like it was some kinda temple. "And do..." he paused for a moment, "nothing?"
"I don't know," I remembered replying. "But that's what I'm doing."
"And for what reason would you present to me? He asked as he pointed at his chest and that's when I noticed it was covered in a delightful shade of once again brownish almost blonde chest hair. "That you'd wanna sit in a dark room and do nothing?"
He stopped talking and it almost seemed like he was waiting for me to answer his question.
"Do I know you?" I asked instead.
"Of course, you know me," he answered. "Am I not," he pointed once again at his chest, and then to me, "your Master?"
"Master?" I inquired, now in a questioning voice.
"Master?" I repeated.
He laughed and instructed me in not too pleasant a voice to rise from the floor and dust myself off and get out into the sunshine.
"Master?" I remember repeating again.
"Yes," he answered. A slow smile spread across his face and in the dark light I could see the darkest bluest eyes I'd ever seen in my life. He was simply striking. Why was he in this room with me. He had to have a ton of ladies chasing after him. There was no way he was simply... alone.
"Maxie?" a new voice called out to me and I looked up into the face of my friend Wanda.
"You've gotta get out of this room. It's been days since you ventured out into the sunshine." She pointed at the door which lead out to light. I closed my eyes and blinked several times. It was too much light. Had I been in this dark room that long?
"He's been gone for weeks now," she continued talking. "He's not coming back." She came towards me and tried to get me to stand up. I refused.
"He's not dead," I replied. "I'd know if he were dead." I felt the tears I'd shed when they told me he was missing in action brim to the sides of my eyes and slowly stream down my face.
"They don't know if he's dead or alive," was her answer. "But you'll be dead if you stay in a dark place like this." She tried once again to get me to get up. This time I stood.
"When was the last time you ate?" She inquired noticing that I'd lost so much weight.
"Ate?" I asked in a shallow voice. I wasn't sure I even remembered what food tasted like.
Berry wouldn't like it if he knew you were not taking care of yourself." She nodded her head and tried to help me walk towards the light. I stumbled, stopped walking and then tried again.
She took my arm and we continued to walk out into the sunshine. The darkness that had surrounded me vanished and the world around me slowly came into focus.
I had been sitting in a dark room in the garage. I saw cars coming down the street and people out in their lawns mowing and talking and working on gardens. Children were riding bikes and laughing and playing while I'd been in a deep dark place pretty much dying.
Darkness still surrounded my heart. Darkness held onto me and wanted it to take me back into the darkness where I knew I could find him. The man, the man that I'd loved it felt like forever...
"Come on, "Wanda instructed me again and tried to get me to walk. I followed her simply because I was too weak to protest. "Let's get you a nice warm bath and some food!" She started towards the house. The house where he and I lived. I stopped walking.
"He's not inside," I remarked. "I don't wanna go in."
"In we must go," she assured me as she again guided me towards the porch and nodded at my dying plants which I'd always taken such good care of.
"Berry would be disappointed that you let all those plants die."
She helped me start up the steps. "You know he loved you beyond life itself."
She took a few more steps. "You had the love one only reads about in books."
I took a few more steps and stopped. The blackness that surrounded me burst like a bubble over my head and all at once I was crying so loud and so hard I felt like it was raining over my head.
Big storm clouds dropped from the sky and thunder and lightening joined in.
I surrendered to the condition and simply sank to the ground and laid my head on my knees.
"Are you planning to sit out here in the pouring rain?" A voice asked me between the lightening and thunder strikes.
"What?" I asked as I looked up. Standing before me in the pouring rain was an individual I'd never seen before. He was a tall striking man in his late twenties, I felt. I was in my early sixties. So, I was surprised someone would even notice an old bird like me sitting in the pouring rain.
"I asked you if you planned to sit out here in the pouring rain... all day?" he concluded in rather a huffy voice. His stance appeared unforgiving.
"I don't know," I replied. Feeling just that uncomfortable.
"You don't know a lot," he boasted. "Now get up and come with me," he instructed, and started to walk away. His stride reminded me of Berry when he was young. He looked back again and added. "Don't argue," he instructed, "move!"
Without thought I jumped to my feet and started trailing after him. He reminded me of Berry too when we'd first met.
He opened the door to the garage and motioned me inside. "That is no place for an old lady to be sitting," he instructed me. I said nothing but accepted the towel he gave me and sat down where he instructed.
"Well are you gonna eat that or not?" Wanda asked me as I sat at the table with a spoon in my hand looking down at the soup she'd given me. Everything came back into focus slowly. Like a camera changing frames.
"Where had I been? Who was that guy?" I dropped the spoon into the soup and took a drag of it. "Nothing doing if I didn't try to eat something," I said to myself.
"How long..." I mumbled.
"Has he been gone?" Wanda finished my sentence. Two years," she replied.
"The plane flew over Africa and crashed in the ocean."
She stopped talking for a moment. "No bodies were found," she added almost like an after thought.
"I remember," I whispered. The soup tasted like trash. But, I wasn't gonna tell her that. It was more then likely me and not the soup with the taste problems these days.
"Are you gonna eat that?" A strong male voice spoke to me from above my shoulder. "You do realize," the male voice lowed in volume and then kept talking, "you're not likely to get anymore."
I made no reply. The soup in the bowl sitting on the ground by my feet looked like it'd been saved for days out in the open. If I looked closely I was sure I'd see bugs you didn't wanna eat floating around inside.
The voice said nothing else and the space where I felt trapped was finely quiet and lonely.
"We will never get out of here...alive." A new voice filled the air around me and I pushed the soup away and looked to see who it was.
A younger version of myself was speaking. I couldn't see how that could happen. Wasn't I the only one in the room?
"They never allow anyone to survive," my younger self assured me as they got up and tossed their soup bowl towards the door splashing the not at all eaten portion they'd been given on the wall. Slowly, it rolled towards the floor waves of disgust filled me as I watched it travel.
"The whole idea is to kill you any way they can and as fast as they can," I assured myself as I realized I was talking to myself. My younger self faded away. "But, not to kill you with their bare hands," the voice faded away. Somehow I knew this. Your death had to be of your own will.
Have I gone insane? I asked myself.
"You can't loose anymore weight," I heard Wanda preaching. "You have to eat." I looked up and smiled. "If you don't want that soup I can make you something else..." She reached out to take the soup and I stopped her. I batted her hands away to keep her from taking it.
"The soup is fine," I assured her. "I'll eat it." I looked down at it and found that it looked good. No bugs were floating in it and it smelled very good.
I took another sip from my spoon and swallowed.
"Told you not to eat that," my younger self assured me once again. "I'm sure it's full of bad things besides bugs."
"What?"
I gagged and spit it out on the ground beside me also pushing it over so it spilled onto the ground and rolled towards a drain I saw not too far away.
"We will just starve to death together," I assured myself. "I'd rather do that then eat anything as disgusting as that."
My younger self faded away to be replaced by Berry. "Get over here," he commanded me. I rose and stepped towards him. Behind him were chains and hand cuffs attached to the wall.
"Step in," he commanded.
"I..."
"NOW!" he commanded me.
I complied without another word.
"Don't worry," Wanda assured me as I watched my bowl of soup fall off the table and land face down on the floor at my feet. "I'll get you another one."
