❝ Ellis slipped from the room and his mother's dead body. ❞
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This short story is a dive into the underbelly of grief, explored through the perspective of an uprooted boy in his early twenties. When his distress goes unseen by anyone within reach...
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THREE teetering
Three.
The question jarred his brain. Ellis closed his eyes in the second of gathering.
"She's..." He paused not knowing what to say, not knowing what he wanted to either. "Hey, you know, can we not talk about this right now?"
"Of course. I just thought—"
"You're all good." He'd caught the edge in his tone and softened it, adding quickly, "You're out...enjoy your night let's catch up soon? Tell everyone I say hi." Ani's silence following his words was louder than the background noise.
"Are you good?" Ellis chewed on his lip passively.
"Mhm." The background noises warbled again in and out through his phone speaker.
"You sound...I don't know. Off." Ani's syllables drawled in a drunken way. Was he off? What should he be doing right now? He didn't know the answer to that question.
"I don't know, I—" He paused, searching further for the right words, getting used to the cotton sensation in his windpipe. Something happened on the other end, a loud shout and a dispersion of nervous chatter. He heard Ani say something to someone else, before her words became indiscernible. The pause stretched long enough to become an identifiable break in words, one which let him know of the conversation's inevitable demise. Obviously, something was happening on the other end and when she finally spoke into the phone, he knew what was coming.
"Hey, I gotta go. Cops." Ellis nodded to himself. He had answered the call for a bit of familiar conversation, but the thought of it ending so soon left a vague heaviness inside of his chest.
"Yeah, no problem." He almost wished he could ask her not to hang up, but he didn't have an explicable reason why.
"I'll call you later tonight, if you're up? Or tomorrow." His lips quirked up at that; everyone knew the likelihood of a drunk commitment being fulfilled.
"Bet." The call was ended by his thumb and the new found silence seemed to make the Subaru plummet to an even deeper level of dark. Ellis might as well have been a mannequin in a store window for how still he sat, eyes staring out at the rain-dappled windshield towards the damp streets. The gloom of the night crept into him like humid air into an opened bag of croutons. It seeped into his pores and traveled around his body leaving an innate dullness in its wake. There wasn't anything wrong with him. He could respond to his boss's email about his upcoming shift, or take a swig of his coffee—he just didn't want to, even though his tongue felt dry and his throat felt like it was filled with baby powder. His mother and the sponge blurted into his head, disappearing as fast as it had come.
Ellis envisioned himself teetering on the edge of something he couldn't come to describe. When he tried to more closely examine it, the weight became this hollowing sensation. Sighing, he started up his car, heading in the direction of his apartment, the one he shared with two others.
Ellis was their friend's subletter, a last minute coordination when his mom moved in with his aunt, and decided to sell the house in Delafield. Ellis only got the place because the guy had been friends with his cousin since high school. He guessed the two upsides were that he was closer to campus and had been guaranteed at least two friends. He supposed it was crazy how some things fell into place while others dissolved.
