Long Walks

2006-10-12

Category: prose

I try not to date the mentally ill, but sometimes I miss the signs. Those signs are all there. She liked dried out roses, film noir, and long walks on the median. She was one in a million trying to become a statistic.

?Your place or mine?? I asked.

?We better make it your place,? she said, ?The world put me in my place a long time ago.? She slammed back the last of her coffee and dragged me to the door.

I got no sleep that night, if you know what I mean. That?s right, she wouldn?t shut up. The whole night she went on and on about how pointless life was and how nothing mattered.

I slowly deflated until, by sun up, I was flat and misshapen on the floor.

She muttered something about being exhausted and crawled off into the closet.

When I got back from work I didn?t see her anywhere. I even made a cursory look into the closet. All I found in there were piles of old clothes, old shoes, and the other piled crap you find in a bachelor?s closet.

A friend set me up with some work out of town for a week and a half. When I got back, that?s when I noticed the smell. I figured a rat died in the wall or something. I called the super.