Answering Machines Never Make Good Conversationalists

Shadows and a lonely heart have this way have brewing together in that terribly morbid fashion that is only good for kindling thoughts the of future and the past and the universe and her. Always her. Which is to say, not good at all. But it's true, and it's there, and as he’s staring into those familiar storm grey eyes which seem to stare right back at him, right through him, upside down and still as piercing as ever, all he can think of is her.

The more that he tries to tell himself to think of other things, the nicer things, the more he forces his mind to wander as far as possible from that direction, the more it consumes him. Her face floods his view. Her laughter chimes in his ears. The ghost of her touch grazes his skin. There is no escaping, there is no running or hiding or wallowing away in the darkness for that only rouses more memories from the pit of his stomach, the ones he’s tried so hard to forget.

Always and forever, her.

His head hangs off the edge of the bed, neck aching under the uncomfortable position he’s craned it in for hours. Motionless, empty, eyes rolling over the cracks in the picture frame. They absorb the blonde hair and the broad smile and all that was her, and all that he has lost.

Twilight is painted on the clouds outside the window, and the end of another day is whispering in his ear. Another night is beginning to manifest in his heart, threatening its presence, smirking at him from the shadows. He takes another swig of the vodka bottle that's settled on the hardwood below him. Some of it trickles across the stubble of his cheek. He pays it no mind.

His gaze is relieved from the burden of colour that is her picture momentarily as it wanders about the studio apartment, a perfect embodiment that is all he’s become. It's chaotic and scattered and nothing is in its right place. The perpetual monochrome has devoured every hint of life. The grayscale of his reality. Muted tones and dull, faraway sounds that all seem to be too distant, only echoes of what had once been, hazy like a dream.

The line between reality and his nightmares has become too blurred and too obscure for him to tell the difference. He has become too numb to care. If this is fact or fiction, his mind can't tell them apart.

The only truth burning behind his teeth, the only honesty that he knows, the only absolute in his life is that she is gone. It was always her.

Placed on the dresser, her picture is staring him down again. This routine he entertains every week. This unforgiving cycle he clings desperately to because it's all he has left of her. Despite the fact that the world is upside down and the ceiling is his floor and the floor is his canopy, hanging above his head, his mind knows better than to be fooled by simple tricks. Around and around it turns her pale pink lips and her thick black frames until they are just as they were on that day, and the resurrection of abandoned memories seeps into the weak blockades he’s created. They destroy the walls that are feebly trying and pathetically failing to keep him sane. A tsunami of all that is her.

The rim of the clear bottle touches his lips and he feels the familiar burn as the alcohol dribbles down his throat, the only indication that this is real, and that this is happening, and that he’s still alive. He cringes as the flames of vodka scorch his esophagus.

There is no sound spare the ringing of his ears that has become a bitter companion to spend his nights with. Almost as if the silence is so thick, so deafening that his mind can't bring to bare it, and so fabricates anything to break the quiet. If this sound is real or fake, his brain can't make the contrast.

This is his Friday night. This is his life. This is everything he’s become.

The alarm clock on the dresser is glaring at him with it's 7:03 and everything appears to be washed out, bleary and murky like those old movies she used to watch. Lovers set upon French cinema screens. Romance displayed in a black-and-white mirage. The alcohol is disagreeing with his stomach again.

He swallows, and finally sits up.

The lack of control is crawling through his veins, and all the edges of the universe are beginning to blur. One after another, her face is sprinting across his vision, reminiscing of those days when she would breathe down his neck and she would trace her fingertips along his jaw line and she'd say, "Do you suppose Mona Lisa knew she was beautiful?"

She’d ask, “Do you think that Michelangelo would find beauty in Victoria Secret Angels?”

She’d breathe out, “Do you wonder if maybe we’re just too addicted to our suffering?”

These were her raisins of wisdom. Her nuggets of truth. Her hazelnuts of whatever.

Her words are swirling around his head again.

Fumbling hands grope the cool wood beside his bed before they make contact with hard plastic, instinct and quivering fingers pressing the buttons to create a phone number. Apprehension is creeping up his throat, or that could be the alcohol, but he swallows it down with the help of drunk resolve.

The ringing is piercing in contrast to the quiet he’s become acquainted with. It’s blaring and destroying his eardrums, reverberating against the insides of his skull, but he won’t close his eyes because her face has already been burned into the darkness.

“… leave a message!”

At the familiar sound of her voice, recorded on that answering machine that seems to have become a new person entirely in his life, he can feel his throat swelling. Invisible hands are chocking him again, squeezing tightly onto his flesh, leaving him gasping for breath. Tears are swimming in his eyes again. The trembling has taken vengeance on his fingers again. The tightness in his chest returns again.

There seems to be a distinct lack of colour in everything he knows.

“Home… s’come home… please.”

The words sound foreign, as if his soul is merely a spectator to pity what has become of the poor, wretched body he used to own. The slurring as his words rush together, sliding off his tongue, the ringing is deafening in his ears. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. This is only a dream.

But he doesn’t think that his mind could make up the festering pit that’s eating at the remains of his stomach, the unbearable emptiness that nothing can fill.

He’s wondering to himself, maybe, had he something charming to say if she’d still be here. Had he been more of what she wanted, what she needed. Had he given her a reason to stay.

And he’s gasping again, and he’s staring at the ceiling again, and he’s all alone again.

This is fact not fiction, for the first time in years.

“To send this message now, press pound. To play your message again, press one…”