Unforgettable

This post is entirely new. I wanted to have something fresh for this Friday instead of "cheating", as someone said I was doing, and taking previous work and posting it. As I sat with a blank writing pad in front of me trying to think of what to write, I noticed the glasses I was wearing. As I looked at them and the reflection, I started writing. I didn't know exactly where the idea would take me, but that is nothing new. Whenever I write, I start with a general idea of what I would like to put down, and then the words take me where they feel I should go. It feels more natural to me that way.

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He wore glasses. The hardened plastic softly shimmered with the reflection of the world around him. In them I saw a fireplace with a log slowly burning there. The flames licked up the sides of the wood as the smoke rose into the chimney and out into the night air. On the mantle sat a frame with a picture inside of a happy couple. It was their wedding day. I knew that picture well. The dress she wore had eluded her as she spent months travelling from store to store and trying on a thousand different styles before finding the perfect one. She remembered when the photographer had snapped the picture, feeling the elation again from when she first tried it on. She knew then that everything would work out. I could barely see the frame in the reflection of the man's glasses, but I knew she was smiling, her naivete all too apparent.

Next to it hung a stocking, trimmed with red and green. The bulges in the toe and heel gave away the goodies that hid inside. I thought of the owner of this treasure chest running down the stairs, anxious with the thoughts and curiosities of what Santa brought. He probably didn't sleep at all the night before. I imagined him tearing through gifts and presents and loving every minute of it, content and oblivious to the cares and worries of life.

I turned my head and looked around the room. The motley colored tree sat in a shallow stand that only held enough water for it to slowly fade and lose its vibrancy. The needles were brittle and fell at the slightest touch. The branches bent under the weight of the festive ornaments and decorations. I felt as if it were laboring to stay alive, even though its eventual death was imminent. Soon it would lay on the street curb, waiting to be carried away to its final landfill resting place.

I looked back to the glasses and to the reflected room in them. Though I did not want to acknowledge it, everything there was mine, even this man before me. I reached out my hand and touched his cold skin, trying to remember the first time he had held me and I had felt his warmth. The glasses now acted as a barrier between what was real and alive and what was not. I wanted to jump into them and relive that world again, but it was gone. He lay so still, and though his eyes were open, they did not see anymore. I leaned over him, and with my mouth inches from his ear whispered, "I love you." A tear finally fell as the reality sunk in, and I knew that Christmas from now on would never be Merry for me again.