She was awake now with the inevitable yet still pathetic realization that there were a couple of hours before she should really get out of bed - there would be no more sleep, no more cyclical abatement, just the naked, vestiges of the nocturnal trial left to her. Dawn didn't erupt, it crept up and its slow arrival would be far too tardy to spare her the sense of emptiness and nameless dread that would occupy her until she emerged from the confines of her bed. She often wondered why she just didn't get out of bed during this last bit, but she supposed she was obliged by the contract of semi-consciousness and despair - getting out of bed would be a violation of integrity of sorts, she would not deign her depression thus.
She rolled over, nostalgically dragging the comforter up over his ghost - he hated this maneuver he called her crocodile roll. She smiled, sort of, remembering his irritation but finding no pleasure in this phantom spite - only the edge of the threshold she would slide over now, straight into her private wrestling match with her own wretchedness. The song would no longer help.
Consciousness was redefined in these moments stretching into hours. Not awake, not asleep, she just was - empty and suffering from pain with nothing to attach itself to. It drifted through her, stubbornly refusing to stop and reside, not allowing any purchase or her any traction to fight it. It didn't stab or sting, just smothered her hope leaving her less even than the residue of pain, nothing to resurrect later or to learn from. She wondered if he was siphoning off her soul.
Rolling over periodically, glancing at the clock she hated (too fast or too slow, depending on the time of night or the earth's axis she supposed) to measure her accrued endurance and to weigh the penalty of the remaining purgatory, she knew she would survive, but wondered why she should. Time wasn't deterring this daily dramaturgy, if anything, it was fossilizing into a paralyzingly familiar promise. A promise that offered no relief, only an increasing speculation that she must have done something to deserve the torment, for she knew no other human who suffered this way, no other human that could.
As she rose and fell from moments of truce to terror, she kept an eye on the time, knowing it was just a few more minutes before she could free herself to test the futility of the day ahead, to ply at its impotence to offer her one more motive to fight through another night, another embrace with the entropy that had become her life. She pulled the covers back and slid stoically out the other side of the bed, the side he had dominated, a first act of recovery or one last nod to resignation, she wasn't sure. She didn't care much, she was up now and feeling better, cautiously avoiding the acknowledgement of the inevitable decay that would follow what ever type of day she forged. This is what would pass for existence, for loving him and relinquishing her heart as he had demanded. This was the best alternative she could provide to death, the best she could muster.
She rolled over, nostalgically dragging the comforter up over his ghost - he hated this maneuver he called her crocodile roll. She smiled, sort of, remembering his irritation but finding no pleasure in this phantom spite - only the edge of the threshold she would slide over now, straight into her private wrestling match with her own wretchedness. The song would no longer help.
Consciousness was redefined in these moments stretching into hours. Not awake, not asleep, she just was - empty and suffering from pain with nothing to attach itself to. It drifted through her, stubbornly refusing to stop and reside, not allowing any purchase or her any traction to fight it. It didn't stab or sting, just smothered her hope leaving her less even than the residue of pain, nothing to resurrect later or to learn from. She wondered if he was siphoning off her soul.
Rolling over periodically, glancing at the clock she hated (too fast or too slow, depending on the time of night or the earth's axis she supposed) to measure her accrued endurance and to weigh the penalty of the remaining purgatory, she knew she would survive, but wondered why she should. Time wasn't deterring this daily dramaturgy, if anything, it was fossilizing into a paralyzingly familiar promise. A promise that offered no relief, only an increasing speculation that she must have done something to deserve the torment, for she knew no other human who suffered this way, no other human that could.
As she rose and fell from moments of truce to terror, she kept an eye on the time, knowing it was just a few more minutes before she could free herself to test the futility of the day ahead, to ply at its impotence to offer her one more motive to fight through another night, another embrace with the entropy that had become her life. She pulled the covers back and slid stoically out the other side of the bed, the side he had dominated, a first act of recovery or one last nod to resignation, she wasn't sure. She didn't care much, she was up now and feeling better, cautiously avoiding the acknowledgement of the inevitable decay that would follow what ever type of day she forged. This is what would pass for existence, for loving him and relinquishing her heart as he had demanded. This was the best alternative she could provide to death, the best she could muster.
