For the first time in almost two years, Ian Moyer woke up at a decent hour. The inglorious, anxiety inducing keening of his phone announced the time of seven a.m. It was accompanied by the infernal, up-beat yellow sunlight that battled to shine through dirt encrusted windows, illuminating dust motes that floated lazily in the still air of his study and office.
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Burying his face in the pillow, he reached over the scrolled arm of his leather sofa toward the mahogany end table. His fingers searched for the piano black device that was the bane of his existence. He fully intended to turn off the alarm and roll over to face the back of the sofa, away from the intruding cheerfulness of the sun. In that moment, Ian decided he wasn’t going out as planned. His fingers brushed against the cold glass surface, and in his rush to silence the damnable thing, he knocked off the table. It fell to the floor, the dusty, burgundy rug muffling the clatter.
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But it didn’t muffle the alarm. Ian shoved his head under the pillow, pulling it down tight about his ears. His mind started to scream in time with the electronic wailing of the phone, causing pink and purple hued stars to explode with each alarm. He felt the buzz vibrate up through the floor and into the wood frame of the couch.
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“Damn you and damn the vile gods that spawned you!” he shouted into the leather upholstery. Ian flung the pillow across the room. It hit something, and that thing tumbled to the floor with a heavy thud and a crack of glass. A floorboard creaked.
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He swore again and groaned as he turned over, pushing up into a seated position. He turned, and his feet met the rug, once plush and now flattened and dull. Greasy black hair, streaked with gray tumbled down to hide his face, though with closed eyes, he didn’t notice. The phone continued its auditory assault, and Ian’s head pulsed in time. His eyes began to roll back into his head, no longer caring about the alarm or his plans for the next three days.
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He started to doze again.
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Ian found something deep within himself, some reserve of strength he hadn’t had or shown in years. He grasped it and held on tight, just as his hands gripped the edge of the sofa cushions, his knuckles going white in contrast to the rich leather.
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“Fuck,” he sighed, and he peeled his eyes open.
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Through some cruel trick of fate, his phone had bounced and landed in front of the sofa, a mere two feet away. Ian leaned down to pick it up, to end its banshee shrieking. Giving the screen a swipe, he quickly put it face down on the sofa so he wouldn’t have to see the smiling couple on the home screen.
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Though his head still throbbed, he was wide awake, and he looked around the room, ignoring the time induced layer of dust that coated the bookcases and their contents, the two wingback chairs, his desk – everything but the sofa he slept on every night. His pillow had ended up on his mahogany desk, displacing the green shaded replica banker’s lamp. The lamp dangled like an executed criminal, hanging just three inches from the floor, its cord having gone taut at just the right moment to prevent it from crashing to the floor.
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He blinked a few times, wondering what caused the cracking of glass.
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Where was Katherine?
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Ian shot up and over to his desk. He took the pillow from the desktop, a plume of gray dust erupting with it, and tossed it back onto the couch. The frame wasn’t underneath it as he hope. He deflated as he exhaled, fighting to keep his chin strong as he came around the back side of the desk.
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There she was. The cherry framed eight by ten lay on the floor face down, as if the picture itself were ashamed and turned its back on him. A thousand rebukes blasted through Ian’s mind in an instant. He knelt to retrieve the picture frame, turning it over to find a crack in the glass that swooped from top to bottom across Katherine’s face.
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“I’m so sorry, babe,” Ian breathed as he traced his fingers down the fissure, begging to touch her once more. He hissed as the razor edge slit the skin on the tip of his middle finger, but he didn’t pull away. He completed following the fracture, ignorant of the blood welling up into the cut.
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He brought the picture to his chest, wrapping his arms around it. It was as close to feeling her against him as he would ever get. After several long seconds, Ian placed Katherine back onto his desk, careful not to get blood on the frame. He ignored the lamp as he left his office.
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Gloom ruled the house, since the only eastern facing windows on the first floor were in his office. He preferred it that way. It kept him from seeing everything he’d avoided in two years. The sitting room lay fallow, and even the attached living room hadn’t been touched except for the liquor cabinet. Even the darkened doorway leading to his studio hardly ever called him anymore.
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Ian lost himself in the depths of dark thoughts. It would be nothing to not go. He was expected at the convention center by noon, but he didn’t have to go. He could just go back to his sofa and go back to sleep, awaken around noon, drink some more, and go back to sleep again. The convention would just shrug, shake their heads, pack up all his stuff, and ship it back to him. Or maybe they’d just leave it there, and the convention center staff would throw it all in a dumpster. That would be fine.
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Even as he thought it, intense distress shot through Ian’s gut. No, that wouldn’t happen. He would go. They made the offer, and in a moment of weak clarity, he’d accepted. He had to do this.
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A plick broke him out of this reverie. A drop of blood splattered the oak floor where it had fallen from his finger. A gusting spring breeze rustled the through the trees surrounding his home. The roof creaked. The house sighed in disappointment.
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Ian found the oak stairs that swept up to the second level of his home. He started to trudge upward, placing his left hand on the railing as he went, careful not to trail blood with his right. He displaced little accumulated dust, careful to walk in his own footsteps from previous wanderings up and down the stairs. The wooden steps accepted his weight but complained as his resolve built.
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He reached the top and stared at the cherry double doors that led into the master suite. These were free from the dust of years, the brass doorknob and fittings untarnished as if someone maintained them regularly. He stared at them silently for a time. How long he was unsure, but enough time passed that the slow ooze from his right middle finger had ceased.
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Finally, he reached forward and grasped the doorknob. He hesitated, unwilling to face what he knew was the truth. He closed his eyes, fighting back tears as he finally decided. He gave the doorknob a tentative turn. It gave very little, maybe a few millimeters when it stopped. Locked. Always locked.
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Ian turned away from the doors. He leaned on the banister and looked down over the cold, vacant entry hall of his home. A refrain came to his mind.
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What have I become?
My sweetest friend.
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end.
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Ian sighed and hung his head, hoping in that moment the railing would just give way. Let him tumble to the hardwood floor some twenty feet or more below. Let him break his neck. But he knew it wouldn’t happen. He’d restored this house with painstaking love, made sure it would last for him and Katherine forever, and it wouldn’t betray him now.
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Ian turned away and ambled down the hallway toward the guest suite and a hot shower.