by Brian Pears

Created on: September 24, 2009

Chris had a horrible night's sleep. The last few nights were fitful, in fact. He'd starting sleeping on one side of the bed, the side nearest the door, but inevitably would roll over onto the other side at some point. When he did, his head would roll onto the other pillow. When his face hit that pillow, when his nose rested against the pillowcase, invariably he'd be able to smell her on it. It was that combination of the lavender shampoo she used to wash her hair and that scent unique to her. He'd loved burying his face in her blonde hair before, loved breathing in that wonderful combination of odors that was particularly, and only, hers. Now, it taunted him in the middle of the night. Yet he would not change the sheets. It was too soon.

He dragged himself out of bed, deciding that he'd lain awake long enough. He stepped into the bathroom and peered into the mirror. He had trouble recognizing himself. It wasn't as if his physical appearance had changed much. The bags under his eyes were more prominent, and he was atypically unshaven, but beyond that, he looked no different. Rather, it was as if an opaque screen had slid between his eyes and the rest of the world. He seemed to lack the same definition he'd had when she was still with him. The lines of his being seemed to blur, even to himself. If he felt better, he might have been concerned by this, but the mere act of getting out of bed sapped him beyond his ability to care about such things.

He looked at the clock on the wall: 5:45am on Sunday. He had never been terribly concerned about time before, but he found himself involuntarily checking the time a lot lately. Almost immediately, he began the calculations - twelve days, seven hours, and fourteen minutes this time. He didn't want to count time from that night, but like so many other things these days, he didn't seem to have control over it. This frightened him. Chris was a man who prided himself on self-control. His motto was "it is what it is," and repeating it like a mantra allowed him to push aside nearly anything unpleasant. The fact that his inner strength had abandoned him when he needed it most was disturbing, and he couldn't pretend not to notice its lack.

Try as he might, he couldn't stop replaying the events of that last night in his mind. It had started so innocently. It was Friday, and as such they followed the routine that they'd established over their two years together. He picked her up from work, and since he got off before her, she teased

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