The Empty Room

The Empty Room

It was an empty room. I mean anyone could look and see that. Just walls of faded gray paint and a dust layer coating the carpet like snow on a manicured lawn.

Tom could relate with this. This room. The emptiness, as cliche as it sounds, mirrored that of himself.

He stood in the doorway as to not disturb the room. He could feel it reaching for him, beckoning him forward to join the forgotten.

It had been ten years.

“It’s been another year” Tom Wesman said in a morose tone.

Only one light in the ceiling fixture remained burning. It used to be four, and all things considered, the final bulb was holding on admirably in the face of a decade. It did seem tired though, and Tom could understand.

He came to this room once every year. For just one day he would open the room to release the waves of bereavement and let them crash over him as he stood in that doorway.

“It’s your room. I won’t come in unless you tell me it’s ok. Is it ok this time?”

A tear welled in Tom’s left eye causing him to swiftly brush it away.

“Is it ok?”

The solemn room remained silent. An ear-splitting morose quiet.

Initially Tom tried to deal with loss. Signed up for many different groups, classes, hobbies. All the things that friends and non-friends alike counseled him to do.  In an attempt to embrace healing he had tried them all and they all led him here, in this doorway, every June 1^st without fail.

There was a musty odor. Seemed a little different than last year, but he couldn’t really be sure.

He shrunk to his knees, then finally sat on the floor gazing in.

“You know, I think I could do it this time. I really do. Maybe we can try?”

No care or concern, nor response or affirmation.

There was a mark on the far wall opposite him about a foot off the floor. He remembered when he made that scuff mark. Just wasn’t paying attention when he crossed his legs and his black soft soul shoe made its mark claiming this wall for its own. It was just after he painted.

A slight grin crept to his lips, them vanished as fast as it came.

He always carried a yellow pad and a pencil when he would come. In the case inspiration would arrive and prose would run wild. Never did though. Never did.

So many years and so much time had led him on his emotional roller coaster and it almost seemed he needed it now. Somehow acclimating to a morose existence iced with a dull toothache of hopelessness.

“Maybe I should write a self help book” he grunted.

Why not. I mean how many smiling faces with deep depression behind their eyes have said so many encouraging words only to careen from grace to a suicidal gasp of the fleeting peace always just outside of their grasp.

Tom, pushed up from the floor, stood, and then leaned against the door jam.

He ran his fingers along the edge of the door molding as he entertained glorious fluid memory of what this room was. A grin returned, he knocked three times on the door jam and let his mind just run away.

The room wasn’t always empty. There was actual furniture that was actually used.

A worn wooden desk right in front of the window. The marks still impressed in the carpet.

He remembered the brass floor lamp with the Edison style bulb that bathed the room in a warm amber tone in the evenings.

A single bed was in the corner covered by a maroon comforter decorated by three throw pillows.

It always smelled like coconut. He really like that.

His lips broke to a quick smile at that memory.

It was difficult to remain in his dream world, basking in the warm memories of hope, joy and happiness. These things long since left this place and gave no forwarding address.

Today let him stay longer than usual but as time ground on he felt the dark thoughts stalking him.

It’s funny how they came. Slow at first, creeping around the edges.

They began marring the scenes one by one, stripping them of the happiness that once drenched them.

It would always end up at the final scene. Like a movie really. It would start with the morose scene of him alone, flash back to all memories of great days then circle back around to finally show, once again the opening scene. Him there alone.

Hollywood had nothing on this tortured soul, He thought. Nope, got that one down pat.

A long exhale followed by Tom opening his eyes revealed the same room, the same dust and the same musty smell that began this whole experience he relived each year.

“So you’re really dead then. Aren’t you?”

The question hung in silence.

This was the room where it all disappeared ten years ago.

Tom was a writer. This was his office, his room of prolific creativity that cast him to world’s far beyond any universe. A room that held Love far deeper than existed in any reality. A room that thrust him to God like status as he made up kings and clowns, Gods and pawns, saints and monsters.

It was the room where Tom was alive and the only place that gave him worth, self confidence or a sense of pride. On this earth there was only here for him.

In direct conflict of each and every character Tom has ever written stood his actual personality and social grace.

It was Social media in the end. The vile unfiltered rhetoric of the self-glorified keyboard bullies typing their retched comments that came for him. The brave critics emoting from dark rooms with evil intent prowling for those for whom they can hurt, bruise or destroy.

When Tom unleashed his prose to the world he expected them to love it as he did. To embrace the journey, the experience and the reveal. He put it all out there. He put himself out there.

It was this that was his triumph … It was this that was his doom.

This was the room where Tom died.

Written by

Kevin James Rhue

6/4/2021