Ichabod

I wandered the streets like a lost dog searching for home without the advantage of smell. Nothing seemed to be real or familiar. The more I walked the more I felt like a tourist in a foreign country gawking at strange sites.

Jane had really gotten to me. How could she not see things as they are? She just didn’t understand. She has changed. I can see that now. Thinking upon our past, I think I can trace the start of our distance. About ten years ago she had a tough pregnancy and ended up losing the baby through a miscarriage. Somehow the miscarriage busted something inside her. The doctors said she could no longer bear any children. Since then she has rarely smiled. Just about the only times she does smile is when she buys something or watches TV. It seems to fill the void in her life.

When she was pregnant, we decided that she would be a stay at home mother. She quit her job and never went back or shows any inclination to do so. She really has no purpose in life.

Ever since that time we have had trouble communicating. We both pulled into our own little worlds to help ourselves deal with the grief. Isolated we began to drift from one another and somehow in the process severed our cord of intimacy by building invisible walls of silence.

Concentrating on juggling thoughts, my feet finally carried me home. I felt afraid to enter and face her crying, but I had to go in and apologize or at least attempt to make up; to try and reach our comfortable distant orbits around each other.

Entering the apartment, I heard a strange noise coming from the bedroom. It was such a strange sound I couldn’t tell if I’d heard it before. Suddenly it hit me. Jane was laughing.

Shocked, I couldn’t believe it. Jane laughing and full of mirth; what was this? A little while ago she was crying and upset; now she is laughing. Well, if she was going to pretend like nothing happened then I sure wouldn’t either.

I went into the room and there she was on the bed watching Happy Idiots that new TV comedy show. "Show any good?" I ask.

"It’s pretty funny." She replied. "While you were away, I also bought a new dicer for the kitchen."

I went rigid, but I wasn’t going to be the one to start anything this time. She looked at me and smiled as if she knew my number. I suddenly realized that I didn’t know hers. A vast wave crashed over us engulfing us and washing us away.

Her veins are glowing. Whispered in my mind as dreams seep into reality.