It's Time for Pizza

          I laughed and laughed some more before her eyes. I only smiled because I knew that that would make her compliment mine. But I was bitterly aware she was already in too much pain. Then, in a fleeting glance, she disappeared again.

          Everything I do now pulls me back to her childish acts, and he can tell, too.

          We were having sex and all was an infinite orgasm. Her shivering body. We were eating the lobster I promised her to cook, or so was the plan until she snuck out to pull it out of the blue bowl during my daily siesta. We were fighting over which shirt should I wear to the opening of our new restaurant, our next step, our new dream. I was shouting at her to stop bugging me about smiling the last time to that cute accountant. We were camping. But she wasn't there.

          Well, I asked Sherley to put on the dark brown curly wig during our "quicky"; it roughly looked like her hair. She had to listen to me as though she cared, too. Not that I needed to pay extra, but that was the only time I had the chance to love her again. Sherley was nice. She was considerate. Sometimes, I just needed to masturbate on her smile. Other times, things were too complicated to even try. Her presence beside me was beautiful though, and I payed her the usual.

          My one night relationships increased frantically after she passed away. They were random women attracted to the bold funny single dad. The kitchen apron was too sexy I guess. And the more nights I spent with them, the more I realized how alone I was. All that I did was somehow bland and strained from all pleasure. Even the meals I made my child grew saltier, inedible. 

         I knew that I had to accept it fast before I fall in place. I had to try to make peace with all the flashbacks. I had to accept her death.

         She refused to go to a hospital. Chemotherapy was as useless as the hope I constantly tried to cushion her with. I screamed and slammed doors numerous times. I cried my fingers into her weak hairs almost every night. I noticed her smile break down from the corners. She started hiding from the 9 year old because she somehow wanted him to remember her as the laughing voice of his lullabies before bed. She was the voice of God speaking into his dreams. The most painful was the fact that we all knew things were only yet to exacerbate.

          Days collapsed ahead as her pain grew more intense, more perpetual, more in control. She could barely move anymore. It hurt to talk. Her eyes became more tired and her lips more dry. Her skin lost the heat and essence. Her movements became frighteningly stiff. I remember that only then when she agreed to go back on treatment.
          She asked for her body to be incinerated. Her vital organs to be donated. She cruelly gave up herself.
Now, whenever my son asks me for his lunch, we order pizza.

Within and Without

          ...and once again, but for the first time and sincerest of all, did I gently stand at the tip of the humid cold railing, clutching to it and peering at the viewpoint ahead.
          I was already gone. I was already a part of an inevitable future, a redundant format.
          All I could remember was the fleshy warm trembling lips of her mouth, speaking only into myself. Those big shimmering sweet eyes and soft tender skin, that of which falls between milky white and wheat.
          I didn't want to though. I was a man with little words and much dreams. I had a different world of mine, one of which never seemed to ever intertwine with hers, never to poke hers sideways along. I knew I had myself already lost in place. I held my breath and pressed my mouth silent, swaying occasionally sideways for stagnant salute. I knew I couldn't speak, talk or stay still.
          It was all about none. I fixed my hair when it fell across the tip of my steady black eyeglasses and returned my hands to where they belonged back in front of me, on the white sheets of the round proud table, separated by the porcelain empty plate. I dragged my fingers along the forming marks of the sheet and up along the neck of the glass aside. Nobody was to know of the table throwing, chair breaking riots within me. I sit straight.
          Halfway through the night, halfway through the well-planned laughter and the dusty hand shakes, halfway through the false dreams and the bright chandelier lights, it all came to an end. I forced an acceptable cough and smiled my way out. I pushed my wooden seat backwards and retreated from all wordy ornaments and tardy cloaks. I just stepped away from all the over-shrunk meals and ostentatious cigar puffing. Most importantly, I stepped away from all her images in my head. I tried to.
          My pace grew out of rhythm and frighteningly loud. I wanted to run away from all the memories, from all the dead expectations, from her.
          I knew so well that my mind shall be imprisoned by her, by her heart, by her smile, her dimple, her eyes, her hair, her everything. I knew that if I kiss her, I will never live a free man again. My heart will no longer romp. My eyes will never see. As I stepped closer to her, my pain grew larger as my pulse ran closer to her. I pouted my face more determined, more in control. I clutched my fists even harder and closer to myself. I fiercely gazed into her tender looks, into her eyes, trying to break whatever charm she had on me. However, little I knew that she only grew more afraid, more in love. I let go of my fingers opened and raised my palm up to her chin, to her cheeks and down to her neck. She trembled weaker than before as I approached her lips and silenced her scared load of noisy whiff of air. And I kissed her some more. 

          Her lips. Her back. Her wrist. Her golden wisps. Her everything.
          I began to run away from the overwhelming images. All the other protocols were flamboyant.
          I broke away from the bland chats and glamorous designs. I rushed down the circular stairs with my right hand sliding just above the railing where her hand might have touched. I rushed away fast towards the wide opened front terrace. I managed the final couple of steps to the cold load of dark breeze outside. Across the portraying images of her, I lifted my sight where she seemed to be. There she was. Dressed in caramel white. Next to him and the little girl.
          Right then, I knew I was within and without the life she had stolen from me.
          And she turned my way.