I stabbed the wooden floor with the mop, slathering the glossy sheen on the surfaces where she walked. Everything was too loud. The silence screamed at me. The thud of the tin can was deafening. The clock would not shut up. I could still hear her laughter, bouncing off the walls, filling up the spaces with echoes.
I glanced up at the display cabinet, clasping trinkets I hadn’t known we owned within its glass cocoon. I hadn’t even realised our plasma television had almost doubled its width. As the sun’s rays filtered through the lace design of the curtains she adored, I was illuminated.
Warm tracks slid down my face as I imagined her once again reaching for the tissue box with the crochet cover she knitted, the other hand twisting the front of my shirt as her eyes fixed on the television screen. I stroked the little chip in the doorframe where her wedding ring had scraped as I carried her into our matrimonial home. With a little gasp of dismay, she lifted the ring to inspect for scratches, her eyebrows closing the distance between them before springing apart as I grabbed her raised fingers and planted butterfly kisses on their tips.
Dropping the mop, I fell back onto the expensive leather sofa. Feeling my chest constrict, I sank my nails into the material, shivering from its coolness.
This was where dreams were made. Heads inclined towards each other, soft gazes and loving whispers breathed. This was supposed to be our fairytale castle. She talked animatedly about the oil painting she would hang on the wall, the Arabian carpet she would dress our bedroom floor in, the shade of lilac she would paint the room for a child we would have.
This was where dreams were shattered. The tangle of limbs, clothes haphazardly draped on the armrest and slick sweat that stained the velvet cushions. Late nights at the office brought me home to her sleeping form, oblivious to my presence except for the frown that briefly passes her face as my keys clink against the bedside table. On the occasion I return early, she greets me with a smile and laugh. The shrill sound still rings in my ears, and I see once again how her lips form a thin arc, like a bow that would not yield.
The house looked so unfamiliar now, decorations cluttering the previously open spaces with ornaments of her fancy, suffocating me with the bombardment of colours, shapes and extravagance. The more I looked at this place, the more foreign it became. And my head spun, so I grabbed something for comfort. A picture of us, behind a cracked frame we promised to replace. I rubbed my thumb over the glass until my prints and clumps of dust blurred her face. I set it carefully back in its exact position. She would have wanted the house neat.
Which is why I rinsed the knives and placed them back into the kitchen drawer. I thrust open the front door and wiped my feet clean on the faded mat with the cheerful greeting. Fishing out the small box from my jeans pocket, I carefully selected the most perfect matchstick. Only the best for her.
Later, as I stood at a distance, I grinned at the mass of yellow, orange, black that engulfed the house, dancing happily on the façade. I imagined that the waves of heat that rolled from the burning mass were her arms cradling fragments of the house as they lingered airborne. I flung wads of the paper money into the flames as they tried to lick the heavens while ashes floated gently downward where the ground would swallow them and reach her. She would have the house she always wanted now.
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