The Dinner Party

“Are you alright dear? You look pale”

“How strange, I’m feeling fine,”

She’s picking up on my unease. I keep my eyes fixed on the road as she reaches for the hand on my thigh, and gently strokes the thumb. I can see the ring flash quickly as we pull into a lit driveway.

“So lovely isn’t it, getting to see everyone together again. It’s been far too long,”

No. It hasn’t been nearly long enough.

“I suppose so,”

My hand rests on handle of the car door. I wish I was a snail, or had a shell of my own that I could hide in. Despite my better knowledge, I’m hoping Joanna can’t make it, or that she hired a babysitter. The door opens before I can even practice to what say.

“Keith! So good to see you and your lovely fiancé again. You haven’t aged a day,”

Her hand squeezes mine gently, and I can see the compliment had the intended effect.

“Come on in guys,”

My heart threatens to jump out of my throat as we walk down the hallway. If she had any sense of perception, she would notice my hand wrapped around hers is growing horribly sweaty. But thankfully, she doesn’t. As we enter the dining room, my eyes lock onto Joanna, onto the baby in the stroller next to her, and on the man completing the trio. I scan the room, frantically searching for a seat as far away from them as the 10×10 room allows. The baby is sleeping, thank god. If it wakes up…

“Keith? Why don’t you sit next to Jo,”

My thoughts are interrupted abruptly. I search Joanna’s face for even a twitch of concern, but her smooth face remains indifferent. We take a seat, as the potatoes are being passed around. I’m lost in the complicated, tangled mess of the room. Questions about the wedding are thrown around the room like darts.

“When are we getting the invites?”

“How’s planning coming along?”

“Any plans for kids soon?”

I feel sick. I can hear the words, but I’m not listening. I think someone might be making a speech, to lifelong friendship or something like that. Maybe it’s about our engagement. I think I catch something about making the right choice. The room feels so full, a lifetime of connections filling the space between every molecule.

“It’s so lovely to see all of you again, and I truly do wish you all the best for your engagement,”

Yet another empty statement, but something about it’s tone sets me even further on edge.

“I have to say, seeing Keith settle down really wasn’t anything I expected to see in my life time,”

Everyone laughs, as if they don’t know whats at stake. I laugh too, but we’re playing a dangerous game. I don’t think my engagement will last until the end of the night.

“Are you feeling alright dear?” is whispered into my ear.

“We should probably talk outside quickly,”

The first seed of doubt, over the course of the night has been planted. I have no intention of telling the truth, but I have to lift some of this weight off my chest. As I push my chair back, it knocks the stroller next to Joanna. The baby starts crying. Shit, just leave it.

“We need to step outside to the car quickly, I think we forgot something,”

I begin to walk out, as the crying gets louder and the gentle sounds of shifting cloth layers filter out. I hear a gasp, but not just any. She’s seen the baby, who’s name I don’t know, staring back at her with my brown eyes and dark curls.

She gasps because she knows whats happened, because there isn’t any doubt.

The Nightshade Problem

5:00 PM, Hospital

Dearest Anna,

Don’t worry about waiting up for me. I have a feeling this will be a long night. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Love,

Will

4:00 AM, Villa Avenue

It’s four am and, not for the first time, I’m wishing I could sleep through the night. I’m wishing the pills would do their job. And so, I pick up a pencil and paper. I don’t write, not anymore, but I might as well try. I’m still alone, for the time being. My pencil is scratching the paper, and as the words blur together I can feel a slight tip tapping in the back of my mind. Someone’s there, a presence hovering at the very back of my consciousness. My pencil scratches harder, as if the meaningless words overflowing onto the paper will keep my thoughts at bay. He’s still here, coming ever so slightly closer. I see two drunk teenagers sitting on a bathroom floor, one of them falling very deeply in love. Get out. Not here, not now. I need to rest, but he’s not leaving. I see them again, picking fruit together on a Sunday afternoon. The image is shifting so fast. Watching the stars together, naming a constellation. Little did I know it would become the only constellation I ever see. The nightshade is blooming everywhere he steps, and I can’t even recognise any of the words on my paper. My consciousness becomes his playground, using my medial forebrain tract as a slide. Rich purple flowers keep blooming. Words morph into lines, lines find their way into drawings. The images keep flashing, like a reel before my eyes. I’m a television screen, and he keeps changing the channel. The nightshade keeps blooming, and I could be imagining it but the air is becoming thick and spongy. I see a monster, a hideous configuration of my worst qualities. I don’t know if I’ll make it through the night. My lungs feel like they’re filled with packing peanuts, and the images keep flashing. He’s not laughing anymore.

4:30 AM, Hospital

Dearest Anna,

What a night. We’ve had another case, it appears to have been suicide. Nightshade growing all over the house, but it looks like it was strangulation. It’s been a long night, I’ll be home soon.

Love,

Will

The Telephone Call

My heart is beating rapidly, threatening to burst out my chest. I pick up the phone, and enter the number slowly. My fingers are trembling so much they can barely find the right keys, as I type in the number. I have the phone book next me, though heaven knows I don’t need it. The waves of time haven’t quite yet washed your number off my heart, right where you last signed it. Two weeks ago. The worst day of my life. First ring. Second ring. Except not really, because every day since then has been worse. Third ring. I’m sweating. Fourth ring.

“Hello?”
“ Um, hi,”
“Who is this?”
“Uhh.. Sara.
There’s a pause. It’s just long enough to be uncomfortable. I can almost hear my heart breaking once again, the old cracks unsealing themselves.
“Sara Robinson, your best friend. Remember? Your best friend…forever. I… I was the one who held your hand in the hospital, you know, the day after you tried to..leave.” “Oh,”
“I was the one who.. who…,”
“I’m so sorry, but I don’t remember”
“But how could you forget” I whisper through the tears “you promised to love me when there was nobody else in the world who would.”
Silence, except this time it wasn’t uncomfortable. Not yet.
“I have something else to tell you. Promise not to be mad,” she tries to say something, but I just keep talking.
“You see, I know you were in love with him. Believe me when I say I knew that. But sometimes knowledge just isn’t enough to stop ourselves from doing things that hurt people we love. So anyway, without you, I was so lost. Try and imagine the loneliest place in the world. Except, it isn’t really because my heart was even lonelier. So even though you were so in love with him, even though we had come so close to losing you forever, I told him I loved him. It was so complicated,” I pause, and swallow thickly. I can’t get the last part out.
“Sara,” she says, jolting me back to reality “I don’t remember any of this”. A fresh wave of tears push their way out. How could she not remember? She was here only a month ago. Even shorter than that, two weeks of torment, of not sleeping, of a lonely heart begging for the sweet kiss of death. Two weeks since he committed suicide. Since I cost us both the only person we had ever loved more than each other.
“He committed suicide!” I can hear my voice rising with hysteria. I need to scream some sense into her. She needs to remember, to hate me, anything. I just can’t be alone anymore.

“HE IS GONE! Huntington Beach is quieter than it’s ever been, I’ve ruined both of our lives. The silence is driving me crazy, the loneliness is slowly suffocating me. How can you be calm?! Scream at me, tell me you hate me, or love me anyway. I can’t be alone anymore!”

“Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach. Wait, you said Sara Robinson right?”
“Yes” I slur through my tears.
“Sara, that was twenty years ago. I went to high school in Huntington Beach twenty years ago.”

Dusk’s Garden

The air smells like roses and Indian jasmine. The palm trees sway gently in the wind, as I scamper through the long grass. The moon is rising in the grey sky, with just a single streak of orange left. It’s an empty field. Both in the sky and on the earth, but not at dusk. This disenchanted garden, alive with succulents and roses, only appears at dusk, just like the streaks of orange in the sky. I’m late. She approaches slowly, breathing deeply. I can feel the heat radiating off her, tendrils of warmth spiralling into the cool air. Her hands, burning hot, find mine. We don’t speak, just feel. I only ever find her here at dusk, when her path across the sky lands here. My palms burn against hers. All of her, is entirely encompassing. Burning everything. But not our dusk garden, not me.

“Don’t go”
“I’m sorry”

I’m alone again. Night has fallen. She’s gone, and the ghosts are closing in. She kept them at bay, but not for long enough. They’re angry. The smell of roses makes it hard to think. The earth is humming. I’m sinking in the soil and the air stinks of roses. I can’t see her anywhere. I’m drowning in the soil now. The stars are shining. All is restored.