Finding An Empty Envelope

We hope things will get better but nobody wants to put in the work, they just wait

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Not too many days that can run full red, first the jobsite tried to bleed you dry again, then you came home to find your wife’s bleeding heart being served as the main dish. “Nothing special,” she said when asked about dinner. Yohan found this particular day, this last Saturday in September would become the embodiment of such a day. As soon as he stepped throw the door, he could smell something almost metallic, like someone had been using a soldering iron, or more than likely Yohan’s mother-in-law left the eggs out to rot again. He called out for his wife Inessa, but received no reply, instead a silence hung heavy in the air sucking the oxygen from of his lungs, replacing it with a growing paranoia. He stands there a moment feeling the goosebumps run up his spine wondering why he wasn’t greeted by the usual myriad of senses. Inessa’s favorite show, Bandit Petersburg should’ve been playing with the volume all the way up and on its endless loop, the sounds of Lieutenant Colonel Kudasov should have been blaring out of the living-room. Yohan should have been able to smell the still cooling Okroshka soup that Inessa and her mother prepared for his lunches and gave to the church on weekends. Inessa’s parents should’ve been heard arguing over the temperature of the thermostat all the while, yet the A/C remained as it was when he left that morning. A vice-grip begun to tighten around Yohan’s heart and lungs, closing in tighter after finding each room empty. He stood in the doorway tired of looking through rooms, instead he looked out at the changing colors of the leaves, inching ever so close to pulling out his phone to call the politsiya. From some distance down the road, he heard the faint beeping of a large truck reversing. This phantom sound struck Yohan fiercely, he quickly realized he never checked the garage. He hadn’t done so because of the limited space, there were only single person passageways going along the walls of their garage. The remaining space was filled with his work files and the rest of his in-law’s possessions from when they were evicted the previous year. The toll of which quickly took rancid root in their marriage. As soon as he walked in, he could tell someone, most likely Inessa, had rearranged all the boxes and miscellaneous furniture. Not until reaching the garage door did, he realize she constructed an ostrog or fort of sorts, A little hide-out he was unable to look into. He called her name, then both his in-law’s names, but nothing called back. He tried to move the boxes in front of him to get a look within but stopped at the sight of something on the floor, so he fell to his knees. Pinned halfway under one of the boxes was an envelope with his name written on it, he recognized Inessa’s long looping handwriting instantly. Within the envelope he found a folded-up page ripped from some outdated anatomy textbook. While unfolding the paper little dried flakes of red floated down to the floor, right in the center of the page a hole stared back at him. Yohan could tell by the shape of the hole that an anatomical diagram of the human heart had been cut out. Right beneath the hole of a heart was lines of Inessa’s elegant, elongated handwriting that continued onto the reverse-side.

“You’ve made clear your desire for nothing, notice of nothing, need for nothing, wanting not a thing, least of all myself, placing nothing as your highest priority, and playing notes of no nuance or emotion. Your nothingness is an infection that craves company. A contagion I must match, I must follow your heartless manners and live without hope. Some hollow existence we can share with each-other. Mama and tata were kind enough to go along with my wishes, making the process rather easy considering the stakes. Nevertheless, they could not live more than a few moments without their tired but still beating old hearts. I’ve placed them, mama’s and tata’s hearts that is, inside the ostrog to rest, the best they can being exposed to the weather. Unfortunately, I found my own chest cavity was much like the page you hold, a hole were the heart should be. Maybe you ripped it from my chest years ago when you refused to provide me with a child, or perhaps it was when you left your unseemly reading materials out for the whole household to view, or when you took me from the motherland without a word, never to return. Regardless of when or why, it rattles my ribcage no more. If by chance, you wish to look upon my heartless form one last time, simply swing open the garage door and we will be reunited in seconds.”

She signed her Pathetique death note with, “No Love Lost Inessa.”

Without a second though Yohan turned around about then pulled the garage door open. Before he could even get it all the way up and locked upright, he heard and saw his wife in their cherry red sixty-five mustang. The sound of the engine revving cut through the evening air, while Inessa sat behind the wheel, wearing her wedding dress that at one time was white. However, because of her self-inflicted chest wound, the old tradition of red came to consume the wedding dress almost entirely. She smiled at him with a kindness that could kill, she slammed her foot on the gas pedal crashing right into Yohan. In no time, they break throw the wall into the kitchen where she had left the gas going all day. A single spark ignited, and their lives finally went up in flames. While trying to live, they could never quite come together, although now as ash, no one would ever be able to tell them apart. An Afterlife as one forever more, just as she would’ve wanted.

By C.L.Norby

From: United States