My random short stories

Mirabilis erat ille

If you stare at something long enough, you memorise every single detail of it. For Celine, she memorised everything about a person. Her person. Her love. She memorised how his eyes were a deep blue that faded into a soft grey around the edges and how the outer corners of his eyes lifted when he smiled. She memorised how his blonde hair would fall in front of his eyes when he was concentrating. She memorised how when he smiled only one side of his mouth rose. She memorised how when he talked about something he loved his whole face shone with excitement. In the end it was a good thing she memorised all this since she would never see it again.

It had been a month since Celine got the letter. The letter that was covered in dirt and was crinkled beyond belief. The letter that adorned the fatal words 'We are sorry to inform you..' Usually when you receive life changing news you have the luxury of panic. The kind of panic where you don't remember anything that happened afterwards. The kind of panic where an overwhelming calm settles over you. Celine, unfortunately, didn't have that luxury. She had the pain of remembering everything in excruciating detail. She remembered feeling as though something was crushing her chest, suffocating her. She remembered screaming until her throat went hoarse and that her neighbour ran in and held her as she wept. She remembered everything.

Now here she sits, at a table with people she's known her whole life yet feeling like a complete stranger to these people. She reaches for her pocket and pulls out the bright orange bottle labelled 'prescription for Celine Moore, take once a day." She pops open the cap and gently tips a pill into her palm, tipping her head back and swallowing the tablet whole.

She had a crumpled piece of paper clutched in her hand, worn from all the times she had read it. Liquid brims her at her eyes, threatening to spill as she opens the page one last time, wanting to read the last thing he ever wrote to her. Bile rises in her throat, but she swallows it down and reads.

'My dearest Celine,

Even in the disgusting trenches of war, hunched like an old beggar I think of you. Even with men left and right of me with bandages covering them like mummies and when green gas surrounds me I remember why I'm here. I remember that I'm here for you. I'm protecting you and I always will.

Love, your husband, Aaron.'

'Protecting me' he had written to her. He went to war and died protecting her. This was all because of me, she thought, her fingers clenching around the piece of paper.

"Now we will hear from the wife of the deceased." A voice reverberated around the room, jolting Celine from her thoughts.

Subconsciously her legs propel her forward, a knot in her stomach. Her lungs closed tightly as she struggled to take her next breath, hands quivering softly. When she reached the stand her eyes roamed around the room and whatever breath she had gained immediately got sucked from her lungs. She couldn't do this. She couldn't talk about the man she loved when he was gone. She just couldn't. But she had to. she moved her hand to place the crumpled piece of paper on the stand in front of her.

"Hi everyone, my name is Celine Moore and I'm the wife of the deceased." Celine stated, her heart lodged in her throat. She clears her throat and looks down at her page, tears swimming behind her eyes. She blinks them back and looks around the room, addressing everyone.

"Love is a funny thing. Love gives you purpose. It gives you meaning. It gives you a sense of belonging you can't find within family and friends. We crave it. When we find our person, we would do anything for them. We do everything we can to keep them because deep down we're all scared of losing this love. I found that person. I found my person. But he's gone now. And he's never coming back. He was the one who'd be there for me at my lowest and the one who cheered me through my best. He'd catch me when I fell into him crying and he'd help me back up when I needed it. He made me laugh, cry, smile. But most importantly he made me feel loved. Now all I have to remember him by are the memories we shared together. I'll remember him in the rain, the smell of warm bread early in the morning, the smell of vanilla and in the red poppies that adorn all of your tables. You can all tell me that my husband died for a good cause. But that's not true. Nothing good causes death. Nothing good causes peoples other halves to be ripped away from them. Nothing good can change someone's life with a single bullet. My husband's death was for nothing good. Not a single thing. My husband died for nothing," Her voice cracks "and the sooner you all see that the sooner you can stop living the lie that are your lives."

Her chest heaves with the weight of what she had just said. With what she done. Celine slowly peels herself off the stage and walks back to her table, eyes cast down. Everyone's eyes burnt into the back of her head but she didn't care. She had said what she wanted to say. Yet why did it feel so wrong, she wondered. Her mums hand landed on her shoulder, tears falling down her face.

"We will now have a viewing of the body." The beneficiary stated.

'No. no. no. no. no. no.' Celine thought

Celine quickly starts to get up, scraping her chair along the floor. Before she can go anywhere her mums hand pulls her back down and tightens against her skin.

"If everyone would please follow me." The man at the stand declared.

Celine grabs her mums hand and rips it from her shoulder, not looking behind her as she stumbles out of the room. Celine manages to hold it together until she gets to the bathroom. She clutches the benchtop of the bathroom until her knuckles turn white and she finally lets her tears fall. She screams until her lungs burn and she cries until there's no tears left for her to cry. People say a heart can't break but, in that moment, Celine felt hers crack wide open. Ever since her husband's death, every reminder of him chipped away slowly at her heart until it finally caved. Until it finally split down the middle. It felt as though someone had reached into her chest and ripped her heart from her chest. Tearing Celine apart.

When you find the love you've been searching for your whole life it becomes a part of you. They become your other half. When her husband died a part of Celine died alongside him. Since he's been gone it feels as though a part of her is missing. She feels empty. She feels incomplete. Every night when she falls asleep, she would have the same beautiful dream. Him running to her. Holding her close to his chest. Holding her tight and never letting me go. Then she wakes up. She wakes up to find herself in a living nightmare.

She moves backwards slightly and her back bumps against the wall. Her knees give out from beneath her and she slumps against the wall, holding her head in her hands. Something clatters to the side of her, and she glances to her left to see a glimpse of bright orange. Her bottle. Her pills. This was it. Her way out. Celine's hand shakes as she goes to pick up the bottle, slowing twisting off the cap. It still read "take once a day."

This was her way out of this living nightmare, and she was going to take it. She poured the remaining pills into her hand, counting them in her head. Thirty. There was thirty of them. She exhales shakily and smashes the pills under the cap of the bottle. She smashed them until they turned into a fine powder. She quickly runs back out to the deserted reception and grabs a glass, storming back to the bathroom. She runs the glass under a stream of water from the sink and drags the white powder into the glass.

The glass quivers in her hand, the water inside swirling.

"I'll see you soon my love." She exclaims softly.

And with that she tips her head back and swallows the contents of the glass whole.