Trauma

A story I wrote a bit over a year ago that I found collecting dust. Comments are appreciated.

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Trauma

She was so alone, yet people surrounded her. People she knew, people she didn’t know and one person she should know better than most. But she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything for them.

Her boyfriend leant forward and gave her a kiss. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back but there was no feeling. She was playing a part in an opera, one with so many people who knew their part to play and she was the one they forgot to give a script.

She pulled back and walked over to chat with other friends. She talked, joked and laughed with them, all the while feeling like a distant outsider, but covering it up with a smile. Her semblance of emotion got her through the day. But at night, staring at a blank computer screen, she couldn’t help but think about how much that screen resembled her. Blank. Emotionless.

She shivered as a chill swept through her. She could hear the noncessant ticking of a watch, she wondered if the watch was counting down the minutes left to go. She hoped it was, she was sick of feeling so empty and wrong. She should be happy. She should be in love. So many things should be, but she just couldn’t. She didn’t know how to anymore.

Her thoughts turned to the whisper of the waves and an instant in time so long ago. She remembered the face of the man so dear to her, imprinted on her memory for all time. He sat beside her, on the sand. Just sitting and listening to the sea and watching the moon dance in the water. Once in a while they’d talk but that soon all dissolved into the wind. And they sat, not speaking just listening.

He saw her shiver and closed a hand around her waist, pulling her to him. She leant against him and basked in the warmth of his body. He started to trace patterns on her back, making her shiver, but this time not with cold. Heat coursed through her and he drew her up for a kiss. She put her heart and soul into that kiss and he took it without flinching.

Another memory intruded, one of a heated argument and a slamming door. Then there had been the sound of an engine. She ran to the door and opened it but it was too late, he was gone. Then there was the awful sound of a grinding crunch and the smash of glass. Her heart plummetted to her feet.

She screamed his name, running down the driveway to the street. A pile of broken wreckage confronted her. She ran to the car that was so familiar, although all that was left was a crumpled mess, wrapped around a pole. She saw him, covered in blood and barely breathing. She pulled away the bent metal and other bits and pieces until she reached him. She said his name, a mantra, over and over again.

She reached him and pulled him out of the wreck, laying him on the grass of the curb. A mass of people gathered round, some trying to talk to her but she couldn’t string any words together to form a comprehensible reply, not that she understood what they were saying. She held him to her breast, saying his name, telling him to keep with her, asking him to hold on, begging him to just stay alive.

The wail of sirens heralded an ambulance, police and a fire engine. The paramedics rushed a gurney over, pushing through the crowd, placing him into it. She followed desperately, holding his hand, still pleading and saying his name over and over again.

She climbed into the ambulance beside him. Mumbling about what they’d do once he’d get out of hospital, telling him she didn’t blame him for anything, berating herself for making this happen.

The ambulance stopped and they pulled him out and through the doors into the hospital. She ran to keep up, silent now as she watched the pale, blood stained face of her love in the harsh, clinical light. They rushed him away as two nurses came up beside her, murmuring niceties and something about a cup of tea for her nerves.

She sat in a hard plastic chair, rocking, muttering and shaking her head. The tea sat cold and untasted on the table in front of her and the TV to one side of the room droned and the elderly patient watching it hacked and coughed every five minutes. A doctor entered, flanked by another doctor and a nurse.

One look at his face and she knew. She froze in her seat and the iron door to her emotions slammed shut. The doctor started to talk. Telling her how sorry he was, that there were complications. She sat mutely, listening but not hearing. He apologised again and asked if she wanted to see him one last time.

She nodded dumbly and followed him. She took one look at the lifeless body and knew for certain that the only man she’d ever love was dead. She slowly walked forward to give one more kiss to him and stepped away. Then she turned and ran out of the hospital.

The next memory was of the chapel service and the coffin at the head of the room that was wreathed in flowers; of the singing of hymns and the droning of speeches; the procession of black clad mourners that followed behind the pallbearers as they made their way to the cemetary. She let the graveside service wash over her and watched as the coffin was lowered into the hole in the ground. She didn’t cry a single tear.

She didn’t go to the wake instead she went home. She put him to the back of her mind and went about household tasks. Life continued as usual. Except that now she was dead inside, a zombie with no emotion. She was an imposter, the real her had died with him. Now her life was just a countown, a ticking watch, until she could meet her love again.