How Could You Cry for Me?

The black and white print taunted him, the story stretched across both pages of the newspaper. They spoke of a tragedy, a horror, a living nightmare. It was unfortunate, they all said, they couldn’t contemplate how it must feel to be him. Of course, he agreed - they had no clue; how could they?

He snorted bitterly into his coffee. Lies: every little bit of happiness, every little smile, every monotonous lecture about positivity, about optimism. All lies. Facing the false bravado of sympathy was bad, the real sympathy, on the other hand, was unbearable. Dear God, they never stopped. The glances; tears; pats on the back. They had no clue; how could they?

He hoped they’d all choke.

His coffee, now a dangerous shade of black was darker, tainted – much like his twisted humour saw his soul to be. The more he watched the seemingly endless abyss swirl, the more entranced he became. Then, in a bizarre twist of reality, he wondered: what would life be like if he’d slipped by as innocuous as coffee. He let out a dry, scratchy laugh. He sounded like a mad man but the heavens knew he felt like one. He almost wished he were one. Maybe then, only then, he could escape.

Where could he go? He felt trapped, caged, locked up inside a life he no longer wanted to be a part of, his grip on the mug tightened. He couldn’t leave the house, nor could he stay locked inside – he couldn’t breathe. Then, he gasped, clutching at his chest as a sharp pain tore through the area he recognised his heart to occupy. He could practically feel the blood seeping through his shirt, splattering little scarlet stars across the dove-white lino floor. The blood that he knew should be there, that is, if the damage was real as opposed to the artificial wound his subconscious had created – a physical embodiment of the psychological turmoil he was dealing with.

Neurosis be damned – they had no clue; how could they?

He thought of his daughter, of his wife and the once again of his daughter. He needed not visualise the array of adorable expressions she wore often on her face, each specific for a certain occasion. Now ingrained on the insides of his eyelids, they would play torturing him every flicker of an eyelid, every drop of an eyelash and all night as he’d sleep; once for every time his heart would beat alongside a familiar pang of hopelessness and loss.

She had his eyes, his daughter that is, and her mother’s long curved eyelashes. She had adorable youthful dimples and curly fair locks. Most importantly to him, however, she had a beautiful soul. He’d lost how count of how often and for how long he’d cried at night reminiscing on her loveliness, her cheeky curiosity, her every adorable step and smile. That little girl was his world – his night, his day, his tears and smiles. He’d hand the world on a silver platter to her if it were what she requested.

And beforehand, his wife –the mother of his only child– had been his world.

It was different in those days, before fatherhood had taken affect on him. He was still the teenager he’d once been – too busy stuck in the past trying to fight his way to the present to truly live life as it came. She had then popped up from nowhere and good lord, that woman was his superhero he’d swear by it.

He didn’t think he’d ever trust anyone as he’d trusted her, again. Not after the heartache of his previous love, but somehow with her, the last time was irrelevant – the faded memory of an old movie he’d watched as a child. She’d sprung up from nowhere and somehow seemed to understand and share his every qualm with life.

As quickly as she’d come, she fixed him. Fixed him as if all he’d needed was a magic word or a key to a lock. Things blurred together soon after that – she loved him, he loved her. That was all that really mattered, he didn’t care enough about much else, certainly not enough to give it the attention and effort it would require to matter. No, he had her and he’d bring down the heavens if she asked.

Those two girls were his world, his entirety, his very being. What was a life without a soul, without a true world to contain a physical body? He didn’t know, but he lived it he was sure.

No, they were gone and they were never coming back.

He had contemplated suicide occasionally since their deaths -despite this compromising his progress, his once unwavering resolute to keep living for the future- for he was sure this life was not how anyone should live and he was unsure how to make this life anything other than the misery it was.

It may once have been, but it could be no more – death was no friend of his. It held no allure, no beauty any longer. It was a thief, it was cruel, and it was heartless. There was no mercy in death, for when he died, he did not believe there was an afterlife waiting for him, which left him standing toe-to-toe with nothingness. Here, on his sin-ridden planet, he had at least the memories to keep him company, to guide and comfort him through the nights where it got tough. They still lived on, his girls, though not in the way he’d have preferred them to, he had them with him and wasn’t that exactly what he asked for?

The others had worried, had watched him carefully, treaded daintily and sometimes not so elegantly around the subject of his girls. They wondered how he was coping because he had only shown himself to be a blank canvas, but even he, himself, doubted how well he was coping or wondered even, whether he was coping at all.

He didn’t seem able to escape the constant weary ache his heart gave off without pause and when things got worse, the screams he could hear echoing and rebounding around his head, the voice that whispered in his ears, leaving him desperate to claw his eyes out.

He couldn’t tell them though, they had no clue; how could they?

It was then he realised the lack of meaning his life held, he just wasn’t sure what he was living for, but he wasn’t sure what was worth dying for either. He learned to tread his thoughts carefully, never straying too far from his girls and their smiles; from his daughter reaching up on her tip-toes and hugging at his legs firmly whilst his arms snaked around his wife’s waist. The way the younger had yelled a goodbye and skipped merrily, carefree and innocent, off to the car and she had lagged behind for a parting kiss.

He loathed how often such thoughts weighed on his mind, the way they’d plague his ever movement and his every thought. He loathed it all, nowadays.

Once again, he closed his eyes, tiredly shutting out the sight of the newspaper he’d been reading this morning; the same newspaper clipping he’d read every morning for the last fourteen months and eleven days. He congratulated them all on their astounding good luck – they had no clue; how could they.

He wouldn’t want them to anyway.