Short Story Broken Heart – Life in Monochrome
Photo credit: biberta from morguefile.com
Tears in this colour bleached world, they don’t matter. See nothing happy; the trend is gloom. Memories, half of them vanished and thoughts, well, they’re unnerving.
I just stood there, at the edge of the bridge. My mind was numb and the love of my heart lost. I’d lost all will to live and kept finding more and more reasons to die. For life was nothing more to me than my daily job. To rise, feed, walk around and breathe. Nothing else matters.
And how I wish I never had awoken.
Two weeks ago, I was lying motionless on a bed, breathing through life-support. I was comatose and alone. People thought it was a miracle I even made it to the hospital. And that it was an even bigger miracle that I opened my eyes after being for almost a year in coma. Doctors declared me dead, and the people I knew left me to myself. The day I took a fresh breath into this world, the truth hit me hard.
I was alone.
And colour-blind.
Ten months ago, I was in a car. I was smiling and in the seat next to me, sat the love of my life, driving. It was a late night decision to run out to the beach and feel the warm ocean. The suggestion was readily taken and the acts hurried. We didn’t even bother wearing our shoes or proper clothes. The road was a rather long one and soon it started to rain. And then rain heavily. He knew it was the right time, and so out came a box and surprised expressions and an acceptance of his proposal right away. There were tears and then screams of joy. There were kisses of love and then a screeching of the brakes.
And out of nowhere, our life ended right there.
Our car hit another coming from the front. The rain was a catalyst and God’s will the finisher. And that was all I remember.
Ten months, I lay in a coma, memories of my previous life playing in unending loops. That was the only thing keeping me alive. But waking up only gave me the pain of loneliness and loss. I awoke to an empty world. That accident took away not only my love, but also my colours.
The wind was piercing, cold and dead. Same old sad weather and the rush of everyday. People just look at you, with blank expressions and horrid acceptance. They don’t care to stop, or even pass on a smile. Everything ran in black and white and so were the expressions. I came back to our empty apartment, things still lying in the same way as they were almost a year ago. Clothes strewn across the floor, the bed still undone and the dishes still on the counter.
All was the same, except, you weren’t here.
I buried myself in our bed wearing his clothes, and breathed the last of our life. It shattered my already ruptured heart to see our photographs, colourless. I tried hard to put the right colour from my mess of memories in the right place. But I could not. I shut my eyes to stop the tears and bring back a hint of colour but for the life of me, I couldn’t.
Somehow everything I owned had a scent of him. All of it, our house, our clothes and our life, didn’t mean anything anymore.
As I lay alone, on his side of the bed, in the dark, I closed my eyes and prayed hard that it was all just a bad dream. It was only a disappointment.
My life was now colourless- viewing everything in a different shade of grey. And the only colour beside those greys that I could still recall was the brilliant golden brown of his eyes- the only colour that still flashes into the inner eye of my memory. The same eyes that looked through me and the same eyes that lost their light right in front of mine.
Ten months since, I live a monochromatic life and the pain of you still lingers.
Waiting, wishing and holding on to what I don’t have anymore.
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