Fades To Black (Complete)

June- The Anger

Shawn

Sitting on the wooden park bench I look out into the play park and once again ask myself why I do this

I say it's because I can't stand to go home. It's not even a home anymore it's just a house, a shell covering the hell that lives within the walls

I can't bare to look at my wife, so tiny and frail, getting smaller day by day, she's fading into nothing and I haven't the strength to grab her and bring her back

I watch as the children climb the frames and impatient parents tap their toes as they are asked to push the swing 'just one more time' and I feel the stirring in my gut, the real reason I come here day after day

"Come on, we're going" shouts a mother that doesn't even look up from her phone to break the news. She and her son arrived barely ten minutes ago and already she's had enough. Her son looks devastated as his face crumples and his bottom lip quivers 'Let him play!' I want to yell at her 'put your fuckin phone down and watch him play! Watch him smile! Watch him live!'

Live...

The word makes me want to scream until my throat bleeds, rage until the entire world is just ashes at my feet

Live when me and everyone that I love are existing in a living death

The boy enjoys one more swing before his mother stands up and heads towards the exit, her gaze still on the tiny white box in her hands, her son runs to catch up but he trips, I automatically spring up as he cries out but then drop back down as I realise how inappropriate it would be for a strange man to rush to her son when she's standing there able to do it herself but she doesn't, she stares at her phone and yells at him to pick himself up and hurry.

The stirring in my stomach blazes red and I close my eyes and enjoy the way it burns

Ignorant people, thinking their entire life is on their phones as their children play and age around them. They are missing it all, blinded by who posted what, scared they might miss out when they are missing out on the only thing that should matter, their children living

Living when mine is not

The green sting of jealousy mixes with the red hot heat of fury and I relish in it. Other than these moments of intense emotion I have lived with nothing since April in fact numbness and nothing are all I have left

Pushing myself to my feet I move forwards, propelling myself to the place I know I can hide myself away at the bottom of an empty bottle until I have no choice to return to the house, the woman and the memories that are slowly suffocating me

********************

Stumbling forward, I narrow my eyes in the darkness

There she is, sitting at the kitchen island as she always is, staring at that fuckin clock as though if she watches it long enough time will start to move backwards and none of this will have happened but it has happened, it did happen and we are living in the aftermath

She moves to the refrigerator and brings out a bottle of water as she always does and then pops 2 pills as she always does and hands them to me as she always does. It's like we are stuck in Groundhog Day, replaying our worst nightmare over and over again.

Usually I would take them and stumble to bed but tonight I don't feel as wasted as I normally do, my brain is still alert, that lava still flowing through my gut and as my wife returns to her perch where she will sit like a stature for hours to come, I feel the lava push against the surface and suddenly break through

"Are you going to sit there for the rest of your life?" She doesn't answer me, she just sits still "what do you think will happen if you stop looking at that clock?" Still she doesn't answer and I lurch forward towards her "Answer me Camila"

"You've been drinking"

I've been drinking?

Of course I've been fuckin drinking

What else am I supposed to do?

How else do I stop the nightmares when they are happening when I'm awake?

"So what?" I ask sounding like a dick and not caring about it

"So I'm not talking to you when you are drunk"

"Not talking to me when I'm drunk? You don't talk to me at all Camila. Never! You never utter one fuckin word to me anymore"

"It goes both ways Shawn"

It goes both fuckin ways?! That's all she has to say? Sitting staring at that clock, sitting on that fuckin stool. I move forward and before I know it I have the clock in my hand

"Staring at this will not change a thing, it's not going to all of a sudden sound and we will wake up from this, it's not going to start going backwards and none of this shit will have ever happened"

"Give me that" she stands up and reaches out for it but I hold it so high I know she will never reach it

"What the fucks happening to us Camila?" I sound angry but I'm more drunk and confused

"Give me the clock" she's pulling at my arms trying to grab it but I just tense my limb so she stands no chance

"Your whole world revolves around this clock"

"I want it back, give it to me now Shawn!"

"Or else what?"

"I'm warning you, give me it now!"

"What are you going to do Camila? What the fuck can you possibly do? Every bad thing that could ever happen to me has already happened. You can scream and shout and slap me and guess what I won't give a shit, I will never give a shit about anything again!" I'm ranting, Camilas eyes are wide, her hands now clawing at my arm, I see red marks appear and then rise against my flesh "You want this so bad? FUCKIN TAKE IT!" I scream and then launch the clock into the floor, the white plastic frame comes to pieces immediately and scatters over the wooden ground

"NO!!!!" Camila drops to her knees and begins scrambling around to collect the pieces and I stand there watching her through a drunken, angry fog "why did you do that? HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!!!" She gathers the pieces together but looks so pathetic down there on her knees that I grab her by the arm and pull her to her feet causing her to lose hold of the broken plastic once more

"It's broken" I snarl "everything's fuckin broken" I turn to leave but before I can her fists begin pummelling my arms and my chest

"I HATE YOU!" She screams as she takes her hand and slaps my face as hard as she can, her wedding ring catching my cheek and I know it will leave a bruise

"I HATE YOU SHAWN!" She screams it over and over, punching and slapping until I take both her hands in mine and pull her as close to me as humanly possible

"And you don't think that I hate myself?" I ask, my voice low and cold and 100% truthful

"That was hers" Camila whispers into my chest "The clock, it was hers and you destroyed it just like you destroyed EVERYTHING!" She screams the last word in my face before ripping her arms from my grasp and running from the kitchen and up the stairs. The bedroom door slamming shut the last thing I hear before I drop to my knees and pick up every remnant of the clock that I can find and then set them down on the kitchen bench

'It was hers...'

I take my hand and swipe the contents of the bench onto the kitchen floor.

The small tv we would watch cartoons on whilst we fed our daughter explodes as it collides with the wood, the kettle we would boil water in to heat up her food, gone. Pulling open the cupboard door I grab every pink, plastic plate and cup and throw them against the wall watching as they ricochet back towards me, not allowing me to escape my torment.

I move to the stool my wife has been glued to for the last two months and raise it above my head before hammering it down onto the floor and finally allowing myself to yell with all the fury I feel

'You destroyed it just like you destroy everything!'

I take my foot and begin kicking the island before raining down punches on it and yelling and screaming and cursing releasing all of my agony in one fiery explosion