Life After You

Kelly looks out into the busy auditorium and takes a deep breath. She wasn't expecting to speak in front of so many people. She wishes she had never agreed to give a lecture. Kelly walks onto the stage with confidence as she is introduced to her audience.

*****

Fear of the unknown is a powerful thing. The mind is a complicated tool that adapts and changes like the wind. Nothing is the same two days in a row. He can feel great one minute and the next he feels awful, like a marching band is trampling through his head with football boots on their feet. Sometimes he doesn't even know how or what to feel, but the emptiness is always there. Since his last session of therapy he had started keeping a journal like Susan had told him. He flicks through the pages and wonders when he will feel like his old self. He feels that the old Jeremy is long gone, never to return. But anything is possible.

The whisky tastes bitter over the nicotine, the pills feel like pebbles in his mouth. The date had gone better than he ever could have expected, but when he returned home the crippling depression smothered him. Jeremy pours himself three fingers worth of bourbon and wanders downstairs to the basement where he keeps his small collection of guitars and parior grand piano. It has been a while since he had last sat down and played and really enjoyed the music.
It had been a while since he had spent time down in the basement, his safe-haven.
Jeremy slugs whisky from the bottle and picks up an old guitar from the stand, an acoustic with black duct-tape on the neck. It was the first guitar he had ever bought with his first pay-check back in high school.
He plays a few chords, something familiar in his drunken state. He stops and drains the bottle, thumping it hard on the floor. He closes his eyes and starts to strum.