Thursday, August 18, 2011

Continuing the Story of Adrienne and Edgar...

It seemed to Adrienne that, since Edgar was dead, that the world ought to stop. She was confused that the world was still going, everything normal, like nothing had ever happened at all. Nobody cared that Adrienne's world had been turned completely upside down, that she didn't know, now, what to do with herself. She no longer had to get up at quarter to seven when Edgar got up with a groan to pee; would no longer hear the laboured trickle and splash of his stream against the porcelain and the shuddering flush of the toilet, the shuffle of his feet in his slippers as he passed through the bedroom and out towards the kitchen to read the morning paper. She wouldn't have to get up, eyes still filled with sleep, and follow him into the kitchen and start cooking breakfast.
Wouldn't ask, "Did you sleep well?"
And wouldn't receive a nonchalant grunt and, "You?"
"Same as always."
"The world's gone crazy," he said every day, looking over the pages of the paper, enraged by one thing or another in the world. "What happened to people?"
And Adrienne would nod assent.
Now, she would wake up, alone, in her bed that would lack the warm spot where Edgar had lain, still primly neat beside her. She simply didn't know what she was going to do with herself.

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