Aegri somnia

(a sick mans dreams)

Part 2

 A long pregnant pause followed.  He looked over the bottle of Jack at the blank faces across from him, trying to find the significance that seemed to be absent in his own life

“My wife…” he muttered to an audience of one.  She wasn’t his wife, never was, but with how long it had been she might as well be. She still could…  He took another drink, feeling the apathy he yearned passing into his veins.  “My God, what have I done?”

He placed his hands onto his now swollen, burning eyes.  Why did it have to be like this?  Resting his forehead on the table, he griped the back of his head with his hands as he felt another wave of pain flow through his body, ripping through him and making him shake violently.  He never knew when the pain was coming.  He could be doing the simplest of tasks, like getting dressed, when a torrent of torment would sweep over him.  It felt like a pickax was being driven into his now dark and battered heart. It wasn’t the pain that truly bothered him though. The emptiness was what agonized him; the utter and surprising lack of emotion.  In the space that existed between the moment of agony he felt nothing.  No joy, no anger…nothing.  It was like being asleep and then waking up in hell.

Did anyone understand the pain he was in?

No… not even her.  She couldn’t understand…

Could she?  For a moment the image of her weeping flashed through his mind.  She looked up at him with those beautiful brown eyes, now sick and empty, the expression on her face capable of shattering even the brightest day.

His stomach wrenched.  The pain welled up inside of him so strongly he nearly threw up.  Tears burst forth from his already throbbing eyes, like adding salt to an already gapping wound.  He tried to cry out but the pain lodged itself in his throat.  The bones in his wrists ached as a deep shudder of anguish tore through his body.

“My God.  What have I done..?”