A Day in the Life Without

[mistkitt]

Originally posted 12/12/14

Sad drabble as I try to scoop all this sadness out of me and unapologetically hurt you all in the process. Muse-verse.

~

7AM, the alarm clock rings. It took her two hours to fall asleep the night before. She glares at the ceiling.

7:50AM, she wipes the condensation from the bathroom mirror and stares at her reflection. Everything’s gravitating downwards no matter how much she exercises. Lines, crevices, bags. She hasn’t dyed her hair in six years.

9AM, she drives to her daughter’s to help with the grandchildren. They’re all youth and energy, running from place to place, showing off disastrous masterpieces in their coloring books. Her daughter asks her how she’s doing. She can’t complain. Then she chases her grandkids around the backyard until she’s too tired to move.

1PM, she heads into work. The shelter is full of girls with mistrustful eyes and haggard appearances. They stare defiantly at her as she talks to them. But little by little, their defenses fall. Little by little, they begin to hope, and to love themselves again.

5PM, she arrives home and makes dinner for herself. It’s not very good. It’s never been very good, but lately it hasn’t tasted the same, which makes it worse.

6PM, she watches Wheel of Fortune, grumbling that the new host isn’t as good as Pat Sajak, may he rest in peace. She yells at the contestants to stop being greedy and solve the damn puzzle already. She laughs when their greed lands them on bankruptcy.

8:30PM, she gets ready for bed, because who is she kidding, she’s sleepy.

9PM, her fingertips caress the black piano. She says hello, and sits on the bench, removing the cover from the keys. She make a clumsy attempt at Claire de Lune because she’s always liked it - who doesn’t? It’s slow going. She can’t get up to the right tempo without pressing the wrong keys, and she’d rather play it lento than play it wrong. But it sounds off to her anyway, as if both herself and the piano are too tired to make it beautiful.

10PM, she lays in bed, staring at the empty space beside her. She reaches behind her for the phone on her nightstand and navigates the menu. At the very bottom of her music playlist, a sound file that’s traveled from phone to computer to phone and phone again; a file that’s survived for half a century. She taps on it, and places the phone on the bed next to her.

“Do I really have to do this?”

“Uh, yeah. An unreleased track from the late Ulquiorra Schiffer? I’ll be filthy rich.”

“If you outlive me, that is.”

“Are you going to play or what?”

“…sometimes I get the feeling that you don’t love me at all, Ms. Inoue.”

“Quit yer bellyaching.”

There’s a beat of silence in which she can see him clearly, in the light of the Las Noches apartment, sitting on the piano bench, glaring at her. Before the gray showed up in their hair, before he felt their daughter move beneath her skin and smiled, before he put the ring on her finger, before the nights they would stay up planning their next vacation, before they needed a calculator to keep up with their anniversaries, before his arms slipped around her for the last time.

Then the music begins, more lovely than anything she could ever play.

And in minutes, she’s asleep.