The Betrayal of Jessie - Writers Forum

Lemex · 07-05-2007, 12:35 PM

This is the first short story I ever wrote, sorry if it's a bit bad.
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The Betrayal of Jessie

By Michael Arnold

I sat, sadly looking into my half-empty glass of Scotch. I was in my Living room accompanied by my kind neighbour, the only person I had left. We where sitting at the other sides of the room in silence. We where not talking but I was enjoying her presence, I needed the company. I had been empty ever since my wife, Jessie, left me two mouths ago. She seamed to leave and take my soul with her and not even the intoxicating liquor in the glass in my hand could heal my pain. I can’t even remember her leaving, there was no goodbye letter, nothing said. I just woke up one day to find she had gone, vanished out of my life. Ever since then I had been a mere shadow of my former self. I still slept, I still ate, I still shit, I still functioned, but my body was empty. Something inside had died.

My neighbour was looking at me, I knew, I could feel it. It was like a bird of pray looking greedily over its prey, its feast. I did not look back in return, I didn’t even bother. I just sat their lifeless, as I had done over the last two mouths since my life fell apart. I had not even acknowledged her existence since I let her into my home. ‘So what are you going to do with you’re life now?’ she asked, I wish she hadn’t, but I knew the question was coming, it was inevitable. I didn’t reply to her.

What am I going to do with my life now?

I thought. I had to do something with my life now; I knew I had to move on. I hadn’t been to work since Jessie left. I had been spending my days lying around the house in constant misery and sorrow. It was as if in mourning. Sometimes in the mornings I would just lie there, the alarm would go off but I would do nothing, just not move, continue lying in my bed staring at the ceiling. After she left I just was no longer interested in real life or worried about what would happen if I didn’t turn up, at first I would ring up saying I was ill or still ‘unfit’ to come back, now I don’t even bother picking up the phone. I’m not even sure if I still have a job. I’m pretty sure even my boss, who had been so kind and understanding, had forgot me. God knows what my co-workers think.

Well fuck them… They have no idea what it’s like.

They don’t know what it’s like to know that the love of you’re life has just left without as much as a word uttered or even a wave goodbye.

I sat motionless, slumped in my chair. Making no movement whatsoever, just staring into my glass of Scotch. I could feel the eyes of judgement upon me, and it was unnerving and rather irritating. I knew my kind neighbour just wanted to help, but I wish she wouldn’t. I didn’t want to be seen, I just wanted to hide from the rest of the world. The heartless world of facts and of figures, of judgement and stereotypes. It was evil. I hated it all. I had become just another name on the endless list of people who’s lives had been destroyed. Another member of the club of broken people who’s lovers had abandon them.

I answered my neighbours question, how could I not? I simply said that I didn’t know what I was to do, but I just didn’t want to live again. That was all I said before she left the room, the house, my life once again. I just stayed there on my seat with the Scotch glass in my hand, staring into the murky glass alone.

My mind cast back to the garden, to the potato patch. Jessie loved potatoes. On a Wednesday night you could smell them cooking on the oven. That warm, loving smell that emitted from the oven that always reminded me of my youth. Since Jessie left those potatoes had been growing evermore rapidly. I don’t know why, but they just seam shoot up and up, climbing higher and higher. I often liked sit at the back door, looking at them, watching them grow. Where everything else was dieing and decaying around them, those potatoes continued to grow. I sometimes, out of spite, cut the tops off the crop and take their seed. There was something liberating in the thought that I could continue to prevent their quest, their journey to paradise. Like how my love, Jessie, had prevented out my own.

I glanced sadly, solemnly over at the shelves in the corner of the room. In my younger days I loved to read, but now the love was little more than a bit of text on a forgotten page in the book I call my life. Pushing that thought to the back of my mind, I looked glumly over the book titles. Every one promised a thrill, a rollercoaster story of life love and adventure. I used to believe in it too. I used too always believe in the light at the end of the tunnel. Now I understood that tunnel was, in fact, caved in, destroyed by the bomber that was love. It was then I noticed something peculiar. A small peace of paper sticking out of the side of a book. I got up off my seat and walked over to it. My legs wobbling. Fear of the unknown lure?

I picked at the edges of the paper until it slipped out enough, then I pulled it out with my full hand and looked at it. It was a poem, my love’s favourite poem.

The Night Sky.

I want the stars to know they win.
I want the moon to know they do.
I want the earth to know that I am still in love with thee.
Until my time alive is due.

I said the words over and over in my mind, tossing them around in the deepest part of my tempest sanity. For a moment I lost myself in the words, walking down empty roads, looking into the endless sky, staring into the mocking stars as they shine upon me with their hateful glow. How I hate the stars, I truly hate them.

“I love you.”

Did I just hear that? The angel that told me, that blessed me with grace, that it loved me? I span round without hesitation. Wishing, hoping, and praying for a blessing. There she was, she was there, standing at the doorway. I was so happy to see her finally again. She was smiling back. She was happy. She moved out of sight, walking into the kitchen. She did not make a sound, I did not care. I was just happy to see her again after the two mouths she had been away.

I rushed toward her, throwing myself into my kitchen that was at the back of my home. I moved so fast I almost fell over. I my haze I spilt my Scotch all over the carpet floor, staining it a dull, lifeless colour. She wasn’t here in the kitchen. She was standing outside in the garden, I could see her through the window. I ran outside screaming her name, howling like a madman. Like some disgusting, screaming ghoul. There she was, standing at the potato patch sadly looking over them. I darted to her side. She made no reaction, she was just standing their, motionless, even her hair wasn’t moving, regardless of the breeze around us. She was pointing accusingly at the ground; I looked down at the spot where she was pointing and it all made sense.
I was taken aback…. terrified of what it meant.

“No!” I howled “No I couldn’t have! I loved you” but she looked at me, her accusingly warm grace filled my blood with disgust. I wanted to spit, spit at her, spit on myself. I was filth. I fell onto the potato mound and pushed the soul away, I knew what I had done, now it was time to tell the world of my crime. Soon, I found the source of my sorrow. The source of the potato crop’s abundance. Underneath the black and cold, hard ground. My wife, Jessie, was lying there. She was dead. I knew what I had done. I knew my crime and I had forgot it, forgot it, pushed her memory like she was nothing. I looked up at the ghost of my wife. She was still smiling that warm smile. Only this time I saw nothing but the death in her eyes.