please listen, it's over

The letter was sealed within manila and left upon the chopping board on the kitchen work surface, where he prepared a daily sandwich of meagre filling. He slid the cheese knife into and across the envelope to open it and pulled out the scrappy piece of notebook paper. “Please listen. It’s over,” it said. “Have an okay life.” He read it two or three times before returning it to the envelope and proceeding with his sandwich. Eight words, one for every year. It amounted to little. He made breakfast and sat to eat it at the table they had shared, and there read the note a further time, loudly slurping the chocolate cereal into his mouth as he did so. He finished the cereal and carried the bowl and spoon to the dishwasher, and went upstairs to get dressed. Sure enough, her bed was empty, wardrobe too, the doors still ajar and coat hangers and a few stray garments and pieces of underwear left on the floor around the furniture. Must have packed quickly, he thought. She was always such a tidy person. He picked and folded the clothes and returned them to the correct places. Her wedding ring and her engagement ring were on top of the chest of drawers, threaded onto a piece of elastic; he picked them up and inspected them and stroked the metal gently with his fingers and recalled the joy of purchasing them with remarkable clarity, as though it were a very recent event. He dressed in his own room and sat on the edge of the bed there and read through the note another few times, hoping for some kind of clue or sign or symbol of which there were none.

Please listen. It’s over.

He dialled her number from his mobile and it began to ring and he was relieved that she had not switched her phone off and considered this a positive sign, but he soon heard a loud vibrating from her bedroom, and when he entered the room he saw the phone lit up on her bedside table, obsolete and abandoned as he himself was. He telephone the office and explained that he would be unable to get into work because of a personal issue, and although slightly frustrated they were sympathetic and asked if there was anything they could do and other such pleasantries, and he thanked them and assured them that he simply needed a brief period of time in which to get things organised and that he would be more than able to accomplish this himself. They advised him to take care, which he ignored. After hanging up he noticed that he had been crying which no doubt his colleagues had heard but it was of little concern. He placed his own phone and the phone of his wife into the toilet and flushed it; whilst the devices remained visible at the base of the splash pool he was certain their electrics would be compromised by the water, and flushed the chain a second time to ensure this all the further. He went back downstairs and enjoyed an espresso from his machine. He removed his belt from his trousers and tied it in the correct way, then observed and considered the drop from the landing banister. Although imperfect he supposed it to be adequate. An okay life was little life at all.

“Please listen,” he said aloud. “It’s over.”

And so it was. He needed only to catch up.