The Empire Black

         Hope; it was that tiny frustrating fragment that would not go away. I was caught by surprise by the way my father handled the passing of uncle Benjamin. The family began to shrink as the years went by, things changed as they always do. The season was in its darkest hours and our shadows crept long across the frost bitten grass. The morning sky was clear and bright, the air was crisp with each inhale and exhale. This was South Street in a town I’d soon like to forget, not for its horrors, but for its stagnation. Any young adult would feel the same, growing up around the elderly and the defeated. Sometimes you had to let go of something so comforting as this suburbanite neighborhood to feel free.

The snow had yet to fall but the trees were bare, awaiting when spring would come again. We adorned our winter clothes over our suits of pristine black. The funeral was sparse; I could feel my hair tingling with the sense of melancholy and loneliness. I sat next to my father, holding still so this rickety chair would not creak interrupting the silence. He had lost his best friend and brother in a car accident some weeks ago. Coincidentally both my uncle and the woman who collided with him had been intoxicated, although Benjamin never drank. This was curious to me, but my father never acknowledges my inquiries.

My father was silent with a blank gaze that would drift off into long forgotten memories on the car ride home. When the darkness came we had nothing left to lose. The hopes and dreams of mighty men had crumbled within our clenched fists.
I was older now, as time passed with me seemingly unaware. The sheets were woven between our legs as I opened my eyes. A delicate face was before me, calm in the rest of sleep. The light sound of the five am traffic drifted through the window. I shifted to stare at the ceiling, nostalgia taking hold.

I had gotten free, so I had thought. Whatever it may have been I had forgotten it now. Here I am still, another city, another love, another life. When I contemplate it all I do not cringe with remorse. But I always stray back to those times drifting along the coast with Rae. One more time, just one more time life would call out, uttering whispers into my ears, into my dreams. Time slips away, and so do I.

The noonday sun, that’s what we wanted. It rose above us barely heating the surface of the earth. This was the time of day to roll lazily out of bed and stretch. With my eyes half open I put the kettle on the stove to boil some water for a dose of instant sludge. It was all we had these days, but complaining wouldn’t buy us fresh coffee grounds. I let out a sigh at these wandering thoughts but smiled to myself as I looked out the window. We had enjoyed our meager selves in this vast world and made due with who we are.

Who we were.

That had been something plaguing my mind for some time. The headaches began several weeks ago, searing into the back of my skull like the unrelenting migraines they were. I felt as though I was trying to grasp something just barely out of my reach within my own mind. I have been losing moments; I tell myself it’s nothing. The liquor, the fire in my chest is the cause and soon that too will pass. It always tends to go away, but something far sinister felt as if it were lurking within the shadows. My eyes could see the movements in the corners of my vision.

This old home played tricks, with its worn teal walls flaking plaster, revealing past generations. It had been a throwback to a different time, the sixties and seventies still lived on here, and that is what we loved.
A piercing whistle jarred me out of my revere. The water was at a boil.

I became aware of my surroundings again, my palms gripping the old ceramic sink with grimy utensils covering its drain.

“Hello, darling.”

I turned slightly and smiled, gripping the kettle with a hot pad.

“Coffee?” I said simply as I poured the water over pseudo-coffee grounds.

“Mm, I’m going back to bed. Why are you up so early anyway?” Astrid, the girl from my bed, said in a tired voice stifling a yawn.

“I couldn’t sleep, I’ve been having the strangest dreams.”