Sudden Eviction

The gig was up, as the saying goes. What could have been done had been done, but nothing could stop the inevitable.

The eviction had been swift and there was no room for negotiation.

So, we stand here, looking over what remains.

One last glimpse of what made up life before we must move on to something else. To uncertainty. You seem so consumed in shock to express anything while I feel the utmost desire to weep but remain unable to do so.

Those scars were where the pins were in my leg after the car accident in high school. That one there, above the eyebrow, was from a fall down the stairs. Drunk and doing something dumb on a dare during college. You drove me to the hospital to get the stitches that night. The small one there on the elbow was from a pretty bad bike accident when I was twelve.

I notice your sudden intake of breath as I brush past you, and you turn away from the examination table.

“It’s him.” You say to the man in the gown who had pulled back the sheet before leaving. They let you go.

I have no choice but to do so.

I turn back to look over what remains. To the empty dwelling that I had lived in all my life, because that was the thing that had comprised everything I was now. Just a vacant shell. A shabby but well-loved home with empty spots where pictures once hung. Indentations where the furniture was. Only a ghost of the smile I used to wear often in public, one often hiding the pain churning underneath.

But it was a good life but sometimes things happen and happen too quick to change anything about it.

Because I never would have left you.

Not in a million years.

It feels that the emptiness is all I am left with now as I see a light forming somewhere, impossibly far in the distance. I turn back to you as you stand next to the door talking to a man in a suit. He’s explaining the next steps, the beginnings of your new life beyond this one. A life I can see now, one that stretches far beyond this point. You have such a long road ahead of you. An uncertain but happy road.

A way to move on.

To a place where I cannot follow, but it doesn’t change the happiness I feel for you.

The knowing that you’ll be ok.

I turn back to the light. It’s welcoming and warm, but that same uncertainty you feel in your heart I bear as well, though it’s something I can’t express on this side of things.

You can’t hear me.

I’ve tried.

There are no angels, no heavenly gate made of ivory, pearl, or gold. Just a feeling one oneness that feels familiar to me somehow. Perhaps it’s the place where all life came from in the beginning, before taking up residence in this strange and peculiar little world.

This beautiful life.

With one last look at you, I remember our days together, and it is with those thoughts that I step into the light, leaving the dream of this life behind.