Internal Bleeding
Lost. That was how Kumiko felt. Something she had thought would last forever was ripped away from her like a scab off a wound. The old feelings came back in a deluge of loathing, a maelstrom of clashing emotions that surged within like a tsunami of terror.
The old comments, the snide looks and the condescending pity would return. Others would see her as just that single loser-dog. The tears were there. Just below the surface. Even though she was alone, Kumiko would not allow them free flow. She refused to give the bastard even that unseen satisfaction.
As much as she tried, she could not hide the pain. Not completely. Her brow was furrowed with its marks. Her hands fidgeted, fuelled with its energy. Her face was flushed with its furious heat. The skinny prick had risen from the futon, got dressed and looked at her like she was dregs tossed into the river.
“Thanks for everything. It's over.”, were the five words which cut into her heart like a tantō through a samurai's abdomen.
She had stifled a whimper of agonised, choking fury as her heart was rent right through its core. There had been no warning. He had had no affairs. He had come home every evening from his office on time, like clockwork. He was as regular as the trains. He had looked the same as he had when they first moved into together.
As he walked out the door, out of her life, she had just sat there in the cloying remains of sound that hung in the air. The silence was tainted by those parting stabs into her soul.
She sat there now.
Her kimono smelt of him.
She was...
What? A hollow remnant in that moment.
Resolve came, slowly. A steel sliver of solidity cutting through the haze of her misery and loneliness.
She would do what she always did. She was not nothing and was more than that stinking man's ex-partner. She would rise.
But for now, she would immerse herself in the present. She would experience it as it grappled with her, clung to her. A cloying fluid that rose from the well within, that dark place tucked away in the recesses of her inmost self.
© Bryan Beal