prompt: the quietest time in your life
He sat amidst the boxes in the fading light in the apartment for what felt like an eternity.
It was only when he mustered the strength to get up and flick the light on that he realized what a cheap dim bulb it was, hanging there completely bare.
There was no where to sit so he lay down in the middle of the floor listening for something that he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Cars honked and sirens wailed in the streets far below. He could hear the television blaring some foreign language program in the adjacent apartment, and from somewhere above he thought he could hear the faint strains of a guitar.
Just beyond the slightly alarming brown water stain on the ceiling he spied several perfectly round black marks. He wondered for a moment what they were, and then remembered the broom he had found beside the door, waiting to once again thump the ceiling in protest.
It made him wonder about the tenant living above him. Probably some frustrated musician composing over-wrought love songs at three a.m. while forgetting about the tub that they were filling until the bubble bath was covering the floor and making it's way into his apartment via the light fixtures.
Perhaps in a few weeks he too, would be banging the broom handle on the ceiling in frustration.
The apartment wasn't exactly quiet, but something was missing.
The absence of some sound was like an itch in his brain that just wouldn't go away.
Then it dawned on him.
Ordinarily at this point Beckie would have been chattering about what to have for dinner, and what boxes to open first, and if he had noticed what the girl in the lobby was wearing - an assault rifle of words, thoughts and opinions coming at him in a torrent.
But, for the first time in years she was not there to fill the silent spaces he couldn't face - with her life and laughter and wholeness.
And he had chosen it.
He could blame no one but himself.
He anguished.
The silence was deafening and he wasn't sure he could bear it.
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