Hints

– He woke up groggy. There was silence. The room was still. Beneath him, sheets like those he’d been accustomed to for far too many years. These felt softer. He sat up. The windows had been moved. They no longer faced east-west. The morning light was dimmed, as a consequence. The room had four walls, but all other similarities to the room he fell asleep in ended there. He pushed himself off of the mattress and let his foot make its way over the edge and onto the floor. Making contact he froze. There was a comfort in the soft feel of carpet. It took him a moment, but he was able to find a memory of the room. Having found it, he became embarrassed. So much life, so brief, but so much life. He made his way quickly to the closet, to make sure his memory was not deceiving him. Finding inside, the kind of blouses she wore, he was certain about the room. It was his ex-girlfriend’s room. It was the same as when they had been in college. But that had been years removed. He stood there feeling the texture of the fabric, taking deep breaths and finding in them hints of her pheromones, her perfume, and sweat. It had been years. Sure, he had had several dreams, but the scent of dreams is never as precise. So brief had their time together been, but they had fit so much life into it. On cloudy days and idle afternoons, he’d always had a thought or two about her. They hadn’t kept in touch. He regretted that. But there are people we meet who become so close there is no choice but to sever ties completely when there is a tear. He regretted that too, the tear. That had been many years ago. Even though when things weren’t working and finally fell apart with the woman he was living with, it was his college girlfriend his thoughts returned to, it had been many years since the severing. Yet there he stood, in her room. Then he realized it was impossible that this was still her room. So it was not her room. Not anymore. But it was her room, as it had been, as they had shared brilliant moments of life and a deep breadth of it.
His hands dropped. His eyes darted. He reached for the door. It was locked. Nothing strange, as it had always been locked when they spent time in it and was still in every one of his memories. But he was not in one of his memories. He was certain of as much. Only reality can be as real, and only in the moment we live it. All the dreams he’d had of her over the years, were never this vivid. He knew also because of the physiological response his body was having to the hints of her floating in the space of her closet. He hesitated before unlocking the door and turning it, in part because of this, but mostly because of the uncertainty of where he really was. The door didn’t give immediately so he removed his hand from it. Breathing in, he tried to find the resolve. In those moments when he’d thought about her, he had hoped for a way to find himself back in the time they’d shared. He wasn’t sure they wouldn’t tear again, but he’d hope they could follow a different path. He stood frozen at the door, the neurotransmitters affecting his physiology, having subsided, leaving empty synapses. He turned the knob and gave a tug to find himself with a clear view of the living room, where there was a crowd dressed in blacks and grays. He felt like Alice, “curiouser and curiouser.” He made his way through the narrow hall and found himself standing at the back of the living room. At the opposite end, he coud see the context he had stepped into. There was an open coffin, with a body inside. It was her. This was not one of the moments they had shared. This was not a past he had been a part of. Without knowing it he found himself standing above the coffin looking down at her pale presence, not knowing where he found himself in time. As he looked about the room, he saw everyone seemed to look past him. There were tears falling all about the room and no one gave him so much as a first glance. He glanced about, but did not move. He began to feel increasingly uncomfortable there. He thought back to the closet, to the way it had preserved her. He leaned into the coffin and taking a breath recognized she still wore the same perfume. There were other hints of her also.
He crawled inside, closed the coffin, and fell asleep.