One Down, One To Go

He sat in his easy chair and starred out the window, his bottle, long since forgotten, in his hand. The heavy rain beat a steady and soothing rhythm against the slightly dusty pane.

‘A fitting end to a trying day.’ he thought to himself, as another tear escaped his eye and trickled silently down his cheek. He made no attempt to stop this one, as he had the others, but instead reflected on the slight sensation it left behind.

Did it make him less of a man to cry, as he had been told countless times over the years? He didn’t think so, especially not under these circumstances. No, indeed if there was a proper time to let the waves of emotions wash over him and cleanse him then this was defiantly one of them.

Thunder boomed in the distance and lightning forked across the night sky temporarily illuminating the room in which he sat and pondered. In that quick flash something caught his eye. A picture. A picture of her. He dropped his head and let his emotions overtake him. The tears flowed from him like a raging river and his body shuddered with the effort to release them from their lidded prison.

She was the most wonderful person he had ever known. He had loved her and she had loved him too. There was no doubt in his mind about that fact. They loved each other. For a man such as he was that was a commodity that didn’t come often, or cheaply. He tried everyday to show her just how much he cared for her with hugs, kisses, poems and a constant string of ‘I love you’s. He wasn’t an overly romantic man but he had tried his hardest to show her what she meant to him.

Yet he had failed.

Although not an abysmal failure, with fighting and hatred, it had been a failure nonetheless derived from an unbreachable ‘distance’.

Why wouldn’t she let him in? What more could he do?

Her way was to push love and affection away, to wound it before it could wound her. At times she seemed unwilling, or even unable, to believe that someone could have a pure love for her without some ulterior motive. But he had also seen the need in her eyes. The need and want for love, unconditional love, like she had never had before. Love without motive or intention. The kind of love that could express a thousand words of kindness with just a glance.

And he had tried. So help him, he had tried.

Thunder boomed again, this time more closely. The sudden intrusion startled him from his reverie and for the first time in awhile he noticed the bottle in his lap. He raised it with effort to eye level.

Empty

He lay the empty down on the side table next to his chair and grasped the unopened bottle that stood like a soldier awaiting a command beside it.

"One down, one to go." he said humorlessly to noone.

He unscrewed the cap and drank deeply with the zeal of a lost man in a desert who has just found a sparkling oasis. His throat tried to lock up at the hot bitterness but he forced himself to continue. When he finally released his addictive kiss with the bottle it was only three quarters full.

"You old pro!" she would’ve surely said.

He glanced over his right shoulder to where she lay on the bed. She was so beautiful, so peaceful.

He laughed soundlessly at her would be joke. The laugh brought back more memories, better memories.