Hopefully this might make up for it some. Oh, and for those who keep asking me: a new Plans bit is coming soon. :)
This is my attempt at an exercise in trying to grab on to a feeling and describing it, kinda like running the pain away was...
Desolation
She was left with an open wound when he realised he'd gone. Nothing was left, not a stick of furniture, not even a note. Why, why, why?
Penny ran through every corner of the apartment, hoping something was left. But the prick had even taken her clothes! The utter bastard. Brief flashes of anger gave way to a desert of sand and heat and exhaustion called desolation.
The walk from the bedroom to the bathroom was the Sahara, the mongrel even took the toilet paper. Finishing emptying her waste, she refused to flush in a futile vengeance that he would have to clean (though he wouldn't because he was never coming back).
She'd only taken the month away to go on training overseas. She'd needed it, he'd understood he said, they'd played phone tag at the hotel for the first week, continually missing each other. When he got his own job the second week, he rang her once saying how tired he was. Penny thought there was a distance in his voice, something like the Gobi desert in distance.
Leaving the bathroom for the kitchen was like the cold, nighttime of the Simpson desert, with the amazingly coincidental lack of food and water - all gone also, water turned off and everything. Bastard. That flash of anger was like lightning across that bleak desertscape, cracking distantly and then gone just as instantly, a faded memory.
She sat on the floor - what else was there to do? - and contemplated the future. 5 years with Chris, and this was how it ended? Without a clue?
Her phone ringing broke her out of her gloomy reverie. "Penny, it's Chris!" an excited voice said.
"What? Where are you? Where is everything? What have you done to me???" Penny grew more frantic with every word.
"What, you're back? Already? I thought it was tomorrow? Nevermind..." Chris barged on before Penny could say anything. "...Penny, babe, I bought a house, it's magnificent, and I want you to join me, cause I took all our stuff, including yours, and set it all up for us together!"
Penny took a full minute to register what Chris was saying. She asked questions, wondered where they were at, did he still love her, did he have doubts. The answers were emphatic from Chris - Yes, he loved her, No, he had no doubts, and where they were at - she would find out when she came to their new home.
Penny was lost in the desert, hoping for a rescue plane. She was in the Mojave desert now, wondering if she was passing the same stunted trees just minutes before when she asked for the fifth time, "Chris, do you still love me?"
"Come home and I'll show you..."
She hammered the address into her phone, called a taxi, and drove off to meet him. She was moving through the ironic Antarctic desert, with things cooling down around her, and she was drinking in the hope she was building in her heart. As the taxi took her down a beautiful, tree-lined street, Penny found herself in lush, green, green hills as if she was in Ireland.
As she walked in the door of their new home, Chris got down on one knee, gave her a ring, and proposed to her.
AWWW!! that was brilliant! i had a feeling though... but only coz i thought Ed wouldnt leave such a sad story without a happy ending! lol
ReplyDeleteAwww! Yeah I was like PLEASE let there be a happy ending, lol. Very sweet :)
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