Absent
He shut the car door behind her using his side for force. The night air was calm, yet it snapped with a cold bitter bite. The luminescent moon gave an undiluted vision from the tinted glass.
They walked slow footed towards her front door; they were hand in hand, with matching beats, created by the slow sequenced steps they each took. Their glazed eyes which peered at one another created a silence. The silence was so great that the honking car alarm, barking dog, and serenading cricket, had their orchestra pause for their moment of innocent love. Just as the sounds had slipped away, they broke open with a loud crashendow. The moment was lost it melted away like butter in a scorching pan. In that mere second that their eyes had met they lost the world. The glowing arrangement of stars had closed up like children’s eyes during a horror film. The background became engulfed, to a narrow cut of sheer fabric then sown and carried away into the lover’s minds. Soon only their eyes could be seen between the two. The colorless non-existent environment was all that surrounded the two beating hearts. Then a silky hushed whisper of I love you opened the warm silence.
The orchestra erupted once more and the moment was whisped away like the background had been. The dog, alarm, and cricket seamed to regain their power. Then the world woke from its gypsy trance and awareness of other habitants other then themselves appeared.
The christening breeze that had just dissolved began a forest fire of goose bumps on her tender young skin. They walked slowly towards the stoop that lay before the door and stopped. She gave a blissful peck on his newly shaven cheek.
She glanced down to her purse and unsnapped the frigid metal button that jailed her keys. She searched frantically, as her body temperature began a downhill race. She pulled the jangle pile of metal from her purse. Her eyes, blind by the night felt for the rubber ended house key. She found it with little effort, and drove it in.
Shocked by the temperature of the knob her teeth began a tap dance. The squeaky door flew open, and they walked laggardly one after the other. The tranquil air evaporated nearly all her Goosebumps.
She flashed on the hall light and then turned to look at his firm dark face. Her melting neck twisted forward again and followed the bear walls to the floor. Her heart jumped! The calamity of the evening had just began its evil adventure. Shards of glass carpeted the hall floor. Broken frames gave the crystallized decorations dimension. Not just a small area of the hall; every picture, mirror, and frame that papered the walls now blanketed the floor.
With little surface to step on, they both began playing a game of hopscotch to shave their way through the cluttered hall. They reached the living room hell-for-leather.
Again another lightning bolt of shock struck their bulging eyes. Her eyes remained frozen, her body did not even give a quiver, and she was afictciated on the sight of the large screen television that lay gutted on the ground. A smoking lampshade with a lighted bulb lay sparking by its outlet. The couch almost not recognizable was a jigsaw of cushions and frames. Books, CDs, and speakers made puddles on the wood floor. It could only be described as an electronic butcher shop.
When her eyes began to thaw her head robotically turned to the kitchen. A handful of vomit crawled up her throat. The sight of a four-day-old, spoiled, pot of ham hawks and beans was spilt over the floor. It also painted the cupboards and the stove in its roughing stage of life. She had smelt a sent similar to this before. It was a hunted diseased deer left to rot in a festering pile of junk. She had seen it on the side of the road. Again the smell got to her and it caused the vomit. She couldn’t help but remember the maggots that swam through the carcasses’ body. She swallowed the vomit, and regretted it. The acidic taste clang in her mouth like day old coffee. She grabbed a rag from a drawer and covered mouth and nose trying to destroy the sweltering stench. Cupboards were open and empty. The kitchen floor was a porcelain mosaic. Every plate, bowl, and cup created a portrait. A portrait with the masterpiece message undiscovered. The couple’s bewildered faces gazed at one another. He jumped to her and held her close. This caused a roof leak from her now weeping eyes. Her heart, was now in her throat, and began to grow. Her breath harshly shortening began to scare him. He took his large hand and wiped her tear.
She grabbed the phone from the counter and called her fathers cellular. “Hello, Dad, are you their?”
“Oh, hi, it is just you.”
“What happened here?” “At home I mean.”
“I’ll be there in a minute, we’ll talk then.”
Her confused expression gave an awry mood to the room.
“Would you like to help me clean the glass?” she asked the boy. He consented without a trace of thought. Her hiccuping breaths broke pauses through her speech. She walked over the spill to get to the garage, still sheltering her vocal mask with the thick blue rag. She opened the door and a howling wind blew through. She grabbed the first empty box she saw and with one hand held the box onto her head. With the other she slammed the brutal windstorm out.
She came to the hall and saw the silhouette of her lover at the other end. In all this ugliness a heart of gold rang through. They began picking up the glass, and trying to save pictures at the same time.
Their construction clean up was interrupted shortly thereafter. The front door’s knob began to shake. The girl put her hand down onto a camouflaged shard. An electric river of pain flowed savagely up her arm. An animalistic cry shot from her agitated body. Her gaping palm showed blood flowing from the clear demon. The blood had no rhythm in its gravitational fall; it fell like from a windshield. With her thumb and index finger tightly griped onto the glass she pulled with fierce strength, and when getting it out threw it down like a child’s toy soon to be forgotten. She sensed the presence of her father. It wasn’t very difficult seeing how an over whelming smell of Jack Danielle’s had just filled the air. Her father sat her down at the table. His sobbing voice told a story of pain and misfortune. Every syllable was a non-mistakable cry of misery.
“Your mom left us!”
She heard these words and then thoughts of her strung out mother filled her head. Her mother’s life had a pattern just not one that the average person follows. She was a 3-day person. Three days up and then three days down. She lived her life for herself. Her mind was twisted and evil, and full of vanity. From the white powder that ruled her then to the needled that gave her life, she was consumed by her addiction. A dark cloud circled the young head the whole time her mother was cast into her make believe world. This cloud aged the girl; aged her in such a way that child hoods ended before it had a chance to come. It was actually the first good thing the mother had ever done for her daughter. Now, for the first time she could be the kid and not the mom. This 4-word sentence had just changed so much. The young girl’s father squeezed his hand in his newly bought Levi’s. He struggled to pull it out, and then it forcefully broke free. His fist opened and three rings fell from it. They bounced their way from the table and onto the ground. The first ring the father had ever bought for his wife landed in the pool of blood that his daughters hand had created.