Heatwave

A surprize flash fiction.

“Would you speak to me? Please, just… don’t leave me in silence, you know I hate it. You know me. Please, say something.”

Silence smothered her like a pillow forced upon an unsuspecting face of a sleeper. Soft silence, gently pressing onto the skin. A death that doesn’t cause pain could not be evil, could it? Just a deeper state of sleep. The one that lasts forever.

“I wish I could sleep forever,” she said. The one lying beside her didn’t reply. His tanned back uncovered by the linen sheet; the heatwave had been unbearable. She had not slept for a week. Was it the full moon or the heat or the never-ending fights. After they had teared each other’s soul apart, he always slept so peacefully, as if mocking her suffering.

All her tears had run dry in the summer heat. There was nothing left. Nothing but silent grief.

“Please, say something,” she begged the flawless skin on his back. The sun had risen hours ago, it bathed their bed through the open window. It washed every inch of his back in gold. He was beautiful, but not perfect. Not the perfect man she had created in her mind. It took years for expectations to clash with reality, and the collapse of her illusions was a quiet defeat of the mind. She lost her sanity only for a couple of minutes, maybe a couple of hours. If the mind was a clock counting the flow of time, hers was broken, therefore, time had lost its meaning.

Time means nothing to a broken clock.

They lay in silence every night, after the storms of their words raging over their home. The kids had left. Maybe for a couple of days to visit their grandparents, or maybe forever. She couldn’t remember.

“I hate your silence. Please, say something! Don’t leave me in silence! Please, don’t leave me,” she whispered.

Did he stir in his sleep? No, just sunlight playing on his skin.

After the storms, they never settled. Never cleared things. Never apologized. They licked their wounds in solitude. She swallowed her pain with a handful of pills and a glass of wine. He poured whiskey onto his burning rage until it drowned his consciousness, and he slept like a sailor washed ashore after the shipwreck.

“Speak to me, please, don’t leave me in silence, please, don’t leave me,” she spoke, then touched his back. Cold as ice in this heat.

The last time she touched his skin, it was hot and covered in whiskey sweat. He lay on his back, his bare chest rising and falling like calm waves of the ocean. His peaceful face mocked her unrest. His sleep mocked her insomnia. He smiled in his dream, only for a couple of seconds, but it broke her. His smile clashed with the remains of her sanity.

After all these years, after all the unsettled storms, after the silent treatment, after all the nights he turned his back on her. For a couple of seconds her drug-clouded mind was crystal clear. She picked up a pillow he had dropped to the floor in his drunk sleep. She pressed it onto his face. He stirred gently, as if wanting to say something. But when she took the pillow off to hear it, he lay silent once again. The storm in his chest had calmed. The ocean smooth as a mirror. She rolled his body to the side. He always slept with his back turned on her.

She lay on her side of the bed. She never slept, clouds rolling over her broken mind. His back turned on her. Night turning into day. His silence turning deeper every second.

She hoped it had been just a nightmare. A hallucination induced by the pills and the wine. He was cold as ice on the hottest morning ever. Seconds and hours poured through her fingers, her broken mind unable to comprehend the flow of time anymore.

“Please, say something. Please, speak to me. Please, don’t leave me,” she curled into a ball and cried, tearless sobs breaking the silence. The heat took her tears, the heat took her mind, the heat took her love. His silence became an eternal punishment for their unsettled storms.

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Thank you for reading!