What do I do with these - your shirts, some of them still freshly laundered and some of them hung on the bathroom wall, reeking of your scent? Your mugs, stained from your daily morning tea? Your toothbrush, some of its brushes have gotten rough from use, with some dried mint toothpaste in between?
When the guests left, I can breathe. After all, their words are a jumbled mess: whispers I barely listen to, an outpour of grievances and hopes that I can stay strong, and the worst questions of how did it happen? as if it wasn’t hard enough to just live through one, I am expected to recount and relive your death, over and over again. Appreciating people’s well-intentioned consolation had its own limit -- when they say everything happens for a reason I am truthfully at loss that I had to stop myself from snarking in response why? what is the reason then? why me? why us?
When the family and friends left, the house has gotten larger exponentially. The makeshift beds and sofas from where people slept, the boxes of take-away foods in the corner, the footsteps of people busy as bees taking care of each other, taking care of you. They disappeared into thin air and the house has gotten larger exponentially. I can hear my own breathing, I can hear the faint hum of the fridge, the rustles from the air-con.
In my head I wrote a mental note to be eternally grateful for those who stayed, those who checked on me on the daily, those who genuinely cared for me, not in laughter and joy but also in silence and despair. Scrap that - I don’t like the word eternal, for it reminds me that there’s a world where I will never again, until the end of me, hear your voice, look at your eyes. I am just, grateful.
The empty and now larger house is a safe space. Is it bizarre that I am mad, crazy mad, at the world that just… resumes? Does your passing mean nothing for the world? The world should’ve set itself to a pause, just like how my world stopped and hasn’t resumed since you left. I want to shout at the people outside the window, asking them to stop. I want to question the people whom we used to (highlight on the phrase used to) call as friends, how does it feel for them, did you mean nothing, for their lives to continue perfectly normally as if you were just a blip. I just want to question why.
The silent and cleaner-than-usual house is deafening. The furnitures are so loud: the chairs shouts our conversation after dinner, the TV constantly plays our Saturday movie nights collection, the oven dings for the baked salmon and the lasagna, the roasted chicken and the leftover meal, the vase sings from the flowers we bought to cheer each other up, the plates displays failed desserts and attempts on gourmet meals.
What do I do with these?
The blue shirt is from when we went to the theme park, the stain on the front is from the fallen ice cream. As I fold it away I wonder whether the anonymous, unknown recipient will use it to go to the same theme park, and comes out of it holding hands as well? The shaver whirrs perfectly, as I box them I clean away the facial hairs that were stuck in between. Funny, will the shaver realize the different facial contours? Will it miss you? The sweatshirt you hung on the bathroom wall, I took them, it smells of you, and I hug it. I hug it really tightly.
Prompt: Heaven by Beyonce.
