Sunday. 2:17 AM. With ghosts of the bottle in my head, and the world spinning, I stumble up the stairs towards my apartment.
“I’m in serious trouble,” I say to myself, aloud.
Standing on the landing in front of my own apartment, I stare at the grain in the white oak as I’ve done at least a thousand times before. I know what awaits me on the other side of the door, and frankly it terrifies me. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I was supposed to be home by midnight, since we have a very important meeting with the future in-laws tomorrow. Unfortunately, as an theoretical physics scientist, sometimes my research takes a little longer than I anticipate.
Usually Amanda is alright with this, it’s all part of the job. She’s a nurse, so she understands attachment to work. Usually. Except for on nights like tonight where I went from researching experimental physics at the lab to researching the effects of ethanol on the human nervous system. You could say it was a success. Such a success I had to return to the lab to find a way to prove my findings. It all happened so fast – it almost seems like it was days ago.
Amanda will not be as excited as I am about tonight's discovery.
Having been here before, I know exactly what awaits me on the other side of the oak when I come upon the courage to turn the brass knob and push the weight of it ajar. As I sit contemplating it, I think I hear a noise inside, which peaks the curiosity of my delusion addled thought process. Suddenly excited of the prospect of what lies on the other side of the door, I push down the handle and enter.
As I do so, I am surprised to not find the darkness lurking in the deepest containers of my mind at all. I drop my bag at the door, as I notice Luther Vandross playing throughout the apartment; I can see her iPod illuminating the walls of the kitchen, connected to the radio she listens to while she cooks. The smell of what was probably a delicious steak is in the apartment. And the smell of wine is sweet– probably the 1975 Pinot we’ve been waiting for a special occasion to open. There’s a smell I just can’t place. Fumbling around, half due to my current condition, half to the darkness, I make my way towards the illuminated iPod, tripping expertly on some unkown object in the dark on my way.
In the kitchen I find, just as I expected, steak dinners. Or dinner. One dirty plate, and one clean, still beautifully presented with asparagus, some sort of cream sauce on egg noodles and a steak. But nothing to explain the putrid smell. I fumble in the dark for the light switch, and almost ceremoniously, I flip it.
Amanda is sprawled across the living room floor, a red halo extending around her head. Even though I can see the revolver a short distance from her body, I pray it’s just a joke. I pray that there’s a group of friends in the hallway down the corner I can’t see that will suddenly jump out and surprise me for something I war unaware of, or the consequences of my actions have led me to forget. I pray the red halo is the wine. It takes me all of a second to bound across the confines of our apartment to examine the woman I love.
“Amanda!” I shout, the panic hitting my voice surprising even myself. I don’t react like this. Not this time. I should know better.
It isn’t red wine.
I sit, very carefully on the couch staring at the site before my eyes. Over just a period of a moment or so I calm down. My heart rate decreases so that I can’t feel it pulsing through my temples. Reaching up, I go to wipe the tears from my eyes, but a second to late, I realize there aren’t any. I take a deep breath, and think to myself about how everything is going to be okay.
“I can fix this,” I say to no one in particular.
Slowly, I retrace my steps back through the kitchen where I turn off the light. I return to the front door, where I retrieve my bag, and take one final look at the woman I loved.
With a much more hurried pace then I previously had, I exit the house and run out to the parking garage underneath our apartment complex. A headache hits me instantly, right at the back of the head where skull meets neck. I worry thinking I too have been fatally shot. Shaking the my head quickly back and forth sloshes the contents of my brain around like whiskey in a tumbler and reminds me that it is possible for a headache to be nothing more than a headache. Nevertheless, my heart is working harder than it has in years; my blood is flowing as the speed of light.
Sitting in my car, alone, with the silence growing on me, as if it will slowly fill my car and push me out, I open the contents of my bag and remove the small metallic box that has become the crowning achievement of my life’s work. For what must be the thousandth time tonight, I stare at the black knob, which is one of only two items that protrude from the box’s cold steel exterior.
The knob is at five. I set it to ten. And drawing a few long deep breaths, I move my hand over the only other item protruding from the box. A trigger. I had thought it made it look cool, but given the circumstances of the night, I think, if I ever get the chance, I’ll change the operating mechanism. Perhaps one of those buttons hidden behind a glass cover you see on nuclear devices in the movies.
Putting aside future revisions I focus on the events that have happened. Letting out a scream, exhaling a harsh breath, I squeeze the trigger tight, as if my life depends on it. In a way, I guess it does.
The world seems to spin just a bit faster as I exhale, letting my head rest on the steering wheel for just a second. I feel like my vision zooms in on tiny fragments of the air that aren’t even visible as I’m physically tossed further from the things I’m trying to see, as if carried away on the crest of a wave. My headache jumps in severity; what was the ringing between your ears after the concert has become the morning after binge drinking, complete with nausea. I look at the clock, and exit my car.
Sunday. 2:12 AM. With ghosts of the bottle in my head, and the world spinning, I stumble up the stairs towards my apartment.
“I’m in serious trouble,” I say to myself, aloud.
Standing on the landing in front of my own apartment, I stare at the grain in the white oak as I’ve done at least a thousand times before. I know what awaits me on the other side of the door, and frankly it terrifies me…
