Sliver

Well it has been for ever since I wrote here, but I am back and I have a brand new story that I wrote today. That's right straight from the page to you. Enjoy.
P.S. I just checked and saw that the last time I added anything is was almost exactly a year ago. Egads!

----------------------------

He hadn't been expecting this. He never thought he would come home to find his place half empty.He didn't realize what was going on at first. He had opened the door and saw that stuff was missing and he freaked out. He ran around his appartment, his heart beating a mile a minute, his thoughts flying through his brain. He didn't know what to do, he was barely registering what was missing. Then he noticed something on the floor. A simple picture frame, fallen from a sidetable. The frame was cracked and the glass fell to the floor as he picked it up. It was a picture of him and Amanda, his girlfriend, the love of his life. He kissed the photo and put it back in its place on the side table. Calmer now he looked around and slowly started to realize something. He hadn't been robbed. There was no way. No one would come to his place and not take his computer, his television, his guitars. Safe for the frame nothing was broken, there was no sign of being robbed. But still stuff was missing. And then it dawned on him. It was her stuff. All of her stuff, gone. Nothing had been stolen, she had simply taken all of her stuff and left. She had said nothing about it to him. There was no note anywhere in the appartment. All he knew was that none of her stuff remained. He thought back to the photoframe on the floor and he realized that that had been the note. That was her goodbye, her way of ending three years of what he always had thought of as undying love. He picked up the glass shards, sat on the floor and cried. A small sliver of glass slipped into his toe, her parting gift.

He sat at a booth towards the back of the bar. Alone. Though he didn't think he was alone. He sat surrounded by empty bottles and happy memories. Memories were all he had left. He had blown hundreds of dollars sitting in that booth. His emotions fluctuating, hitting brutal lows and dizzying highs. He sat there now, a bottle of rum in his hand and tears streaming down his face. He thought of their first date, the first time they met, the first concert they did together. He took a heavy swig from the bottle. Straight, he wanted it to burn on the way down, he wanted to punish himself. He knew he must have done something wrong, so he punished himself, thinking that if he went through enough pain she'd forgive him, come back, move her stuff back in and be happy with him. So he sat there, punishing himself with rough cheap alcohol, the kind that taste like nail polisher remover and burns twice as bad, apologizing to an empty seat. It wasn't empty to him, he saw her there, smiling back at him. He apologized and apologized, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Nervously he reached out and placed the box in front of her, with his right hand he held her hand and with his left hand he opened the box and asked her to marry him. Asked an empty seat to marry him. Asked a memory to marry him. Held the air's hand. She looked at the box, closed her eyes, looked at him, and sighed. She seemed to be about to speak, but nothing came out, she sighed again, got up and walked away, towards the door, towards oblivion. He stood to follow her, but the sliver in his toe stabbed further in and he sat back down, appreciating the pain of her last gift.

Two hours later he had decided what to do. He would leave, disappear, start a new life. There was nothing here for him, no family, all of his friends were her friends. Without her his career was over, just another musician in a big city, utterly pedestrian. So he got up walked over to the bar and settled his bill. He stepped out the door into the blistering sunlight and walked. He knew what he would do, he would go to the spaceport, he would get on the first shuttle and become a colonist, it was so simple, a brand new life, as far away as possible. The spaceport was a beautiful building, five-stories of beautiful curved steel and glass. The walk through the city had been nice, comforting like a warm sweater. He had seen the spaceport in the distance and he was filled with excitement and wonder as he approached it. He was filled with uncontrollable joy, knowing that his loss was not for nothing, that it had given him a noble goal. The pain of the sliver of glass in his toe was nothing more than a reminder of his new direction, his soon to be new life. The spaceport was as beautiful inside as out, a beautiful piece of art made of glass and steel, curved into shapes far from Euclidean. The woman at the counter was very kind and asked few questions, simply directing him to a colonist preparation officer, who ran his papers and explained what his new life would be like. He was informed that the preparations would take several days, and that they would start whenever he wanted. They gave him time to go home gather things he wished to bring with him and say goodbye to those he loved. He told them there was no need to wait, and followed the officer to the medical wing of the spaceport to have be subjected to medical evaluation. He walked towards his new life knowing that the last act of his old life would be removing that splinter of glass from his toe, removing that final painful memory of her.

Two lovers out walking their dogs found him. Face down in a snow-drift, unconscious, shaking, barely breathing. By the time the ambulance got there there was no chance. He died on the way to the hospital. There was no spaceport, no colonies, no other life. His life had hit a road block and he decided to give up on that life, and start a new one. He never learnt that there is no way out, that your life is your life. He imagined a way out and ended up wandering into a cold February day with no coat, or hat, or even long sleeves. He died thinking he had escaped, but he never did. His parents identified his body. The friends he didn't think he had showed up at his funeral, weeping, missing him. At his autopsy the coroner removed a tiny sliver of glass from his toe. He was buried without it. His new life had come, but only now, in death.