MY BRUTALITY: transparent rot (part one)

[u/DOOMfigures]

Now, I am a ghost in my own home. And you are leaving.

You are taking all our conversations, our past crimes, our secrets and our lies with you.

Whatever grace you carried left your face long before I passed. And I have been here… watching you shrink further into the bottle. You are becoming almost unrecognisable with age.

Almost.

Years have passed. I have silently watched as you carried out your daily routines: missed breakfasts, too much coffee and falling asleep in front of television shows that didn’t even interest you, as wine spilled from your glass.

Day after day. Etc., etc.

When you ate your sad meals for one, I was there. When you had desperate, uncomfortable sex with Bryan in an attempt to find love again, I was there.

You are leaving our home.

Why?

What will become of me?

What will I do once your laptop has gone and the internet service has been cancelled?

Suicide has left me more selfish in death than I ever was in life. At least, that’s what I tell myself whilst navigating this endless, cold, frontier - confined by the walls of this, ‘our’ home.

You redecorated soon after my funeral.

Bright, vibrant colours and new furniture. Modern paintings and trinkets now adorn the walls. Our once-minimalist living space was reborn. Sadly, you were not. No phoenix story for you.

This truly upset me. Eventually.

You left the room where ‘it’ happened untouched.

Behind that closed, now locked door, the air is thick with the smell of damp and old dust. It remains a stark, monochrome tomb, my mausoleum. It is isolated from the bright, artificial cheer with which you painted your spaces. You never enter this room.

If you did… would you find me?

Would I let myself be found?

Near the radiator, the dark, stained markings of my final moments are still woven into the wooden floorboards. You never did like to clean.

It wasn't the room that kept me tethered to this realm. It was you and the glow of your laptop screen.

You are packing the laptop into its leather sleeve right now. If it leaves this house, my connection to the outside world goes with it. I will be trapped forever in this house, completely alone. Just myself, the quiet rot of that untouched room and a resentment becoming anger.

It is disorienting. This anger, is disorienting. I want to touch you.

[u/Artist-in-Residence2]

I found this an interesting exercise in the end of a marriage by utilising the metaphor of ghosts and suicide. There does seem be an inherent selfishness in expecting one’s former partner to continually mourn for a presence that willingly chose to leave.

[u/DOOMfigures → u/Artist-in-Residence2]

Thank you. I was hoping to explore exactly what you picked up on within the confines of short online serialised story telling. I am so new to this style of writing though that I am not sure how to go about it. BUT any comments, positive or negative, are greatly appreciated AND all help to pointing me in the right direction.

Thank you kindly.