In The After

Prologue

You don't know your last normal day until it's already passed. And after, when that old normal is already in the rear view mirror of your life, you would do anything to get that day back. To take your time, pay attention, appreciate it. To literally smell the coffee, lean into the touch of the woman you love, hear her say your name with depthless love.

There's no one speaking my name now.

It is, instead, so quiet my skin crawls with it. Silence, too, has a sound. The pounding of your pulse in your skull, the rub of fabrics on your flesh, the breath of a house running but barely lived in. The air conditioner, the tick of a clock on the wall, the click of the refrigerator, the tumble of ice into the bin.

My ears ring with this silence. It's why, almost always, I leave the television or stereo on, if quietly. It's company. Keeps me from losing my mind completely. It reminds me that there is life still going on outside of my own walls.

Even if I want nothing to do with it.

Because it's after. Everything has changed. I am not who I was. That man, he's been irrevocably altered. I can't find him anymore. And that before-me? That's who she loved. Without her, there is no him.

I've lost everything.

Including myself.

If only I'd known it was coming. Maybe if I had braced myself for the blow, I could have held onto some vestige of my being. A shred of soul or heart. Instead, I was blindsided.

Down I went.

I haven't been able to get up since.