Something Full and Round and Fruity

When he leaves, he leaves you with everything. All the memories and all the feelings, and you never know when he is coming back. Seeing him erases everything, as if what you had meant nothing to the universe to disappear just like that. Then there’s the leaving the house bit, do not try it under any circumstance. He always comes back. He always will. When you see him, love him and remember everything and drink from this remembering. It will be the feast to your energy until when next you see him.

What fairytale that is!

Grief

Absorb the loss of your own body. Drain the life out of your mother as she brings you to earth. Hide under the tables and chairs when daddy gets drunk. When Uncle Ben comes over, play in the basement, at least it's dark. Love a boy, love a man. Love a married man. Love the wine glass when it’s finally empty. What are you killing? But something has faded away softly.

Really love the married man. Really love the merlot in a glass. Glasses. Dirty dishes. A baby girl for Uncle Ben sets you in panic. Not just one, but two now. You stop going to family gatherings. Family. Lawyers, evidence, courts, suspense. Empty call logs. Broken hearts from married men. Broken. Lawyers, family; secret gatherings.

Children’s rights. Women’s rights. Both combined. You have to keep up the good fight. Call log; Uncle Ben. Warning, beating, The Violent Death of Anna Louise Njagi Remains A Shocking Mystery. Ben Muthama released due to lack of evidence. Grin. Anna Louise Njagi crying over her body in a quiet house on a desolate field of yellow grass.

For sale, SOLD! Your spirit’s home, now someone else’s home. Jolt through a hallway, mourning. Pull down the sheets of the sleeping. Tickle the feet of the little kids. Turn off the TV suddenly, switch it to static. Upturn pictures, leave a mess of the clothes on the floor. Stick knifes on the kitchen countertop. Make it clear that this is now your home. Forever and alone. 

Something full and round and fruity

For sale, SOLD! For sale, SOLD! For sale, SOLD! Make it clear that this is your home! Dark hair. Bright. Confident. Surveying. Anna Louise Njagi; business woman. No more haunting. Flirting. Richard. Day, night; Richard. Days, years; Richard.

When he leaves, he leaves you with everything. All the memories and all the feelings, and you never know when he is coming back. Seeing him erases everything, as if what you had meant nothing to the universe to disappear just like that. Then there’s the leaving the house bit, do not try it under any circumstance. He always comes back. He always will. When you see him, love him and remember everything and drink from this remembering. It will be the feast to your energy until when next you see him.

Green leaves; yellow. Water; dried up. Air; toxic. Animals; mutated. Hunger. Murder. Humans; barbaric. Earth; inhabitable. Mars. 329 years of unsettled peace; hiding behind lamps and curtains, one with the shadows. Richard; 11 years from the foreverness of love. The more he gives, the more you are. The more he loves, the more physical you become. The more the memories of the past gets erased. By loving, you are letting go of the hurt and finding your peace. Touching Richard. Confessing and getting nothing but ‘I knew that’. And you stayed anyway. But now for mars and Richard.

Selfish. 329 years of unsettled peace. Love. Selfish. 329 years more of love like this. Mars? Selfish. He disagrees. You want him to stay, he wants to stay because of you, but he also wants to leave. Two months; that’s it for earth. Remain on a wasteland and die by your approved signature on a piece of paper that will no longer matter in sixty days. Some time, he says.

Phone call; leaving…How I will handle it? Who is this? Another woman or family? Leaving you or leaving with her? Jittery. Silence. Forever alone, not love everlasting. Eleven days. Lucky number. Do something.

The act of loving

Find yourself flickering like a light. Losing love, descending into the mad state of your previous haunting days. Raising the flame of the candle with your voice. Richard, retreating. Undo this. How to undo this? Who is she? Nobody. Screaming and crying. Glass flying. Wind smashing the glass into shatters, curtains enveloping his scarred body.

Apologies. Anguish. Worry. Bandages. Apologies. A new kind of hurting. Bed sheets. Silk, tongues and warm bodies. Cuddling. Sunrise. Tea. Laughing. Heart pinching. White snakeroot leaves; poison. Tremors…seconds…gasping…seconds…stiffness…with love. See you on the other side.

The other side

“If you were unable to move on from this place, there is nowhere better where you will go until you find your peace. That is why I am glad the world is ending because this way, I can stay here with you in this house.”

“But your soul will move on because you did not die violently like me so there will be no reason for you to be trapped here.” My voice is low and shaky.

“If I am free, I can go whenever I choose. Plus, you have permission to kill me violently. I’ll take anything that traps me here forever with you.”

“Do you think I’ll remember you then, when you’re like me? What if you get lost as you transition and find your soul in another dimension?”

“I don’t know the answer to all of those questions, but what I do know is that love created the universe and I love you so it’s only natural for me to gravitate towards the thing I love. That’s why I told you that I am not your boyfriend but your soul mate. To me, that explains how I can be able to touch you. And because we have pulled ourselves into each other with our love, no one else can see it but us.”

Fantasy, fantasy, fantasy! Your physical presence paling, vanishing; Richard's cooling body under the sheets– bury now, bury fast, bury your heart. Richard’s cooling presence…missing. It’s only been minutes. Eulogy, a hand drawn heart in the mud. Spirit; wood and stone, same as air. Wind howling, grass rustling. Orange clouds forming in a sandwich of grey clouds in the east. Water, splashing. Trees bending, something in nature is angry. All around you; nothing. Suddenly something is watching. You feel a sense of lurking. Hurry back in, look through the glass. Hours, days. Ghost anxiety.

Love everlasting; a sentence in a book. Richard, find me.

DISCLAIMER

This is part of a longer short story (lol) that stood out on its own as a story by itself while still tying in to the larger 27 page story. 😅

Still inspired by this Reedsy prompt. ❤️