A Cracked Life

One of my readers posted a story prompt and blogger thought it was spam. After many months, I discovered it and decided to take action. This piece should be interesting and witty. Did it meet those goals? You be the judge. Feel free to comment below and invite your friends to follow this blog so one lucky winner can score some free cookies. I need to bake as well as write.

Anxious to cut all ties to his own shame at betraying his vows, my ex-husband paid movers to pack up my possessions and move them to my new apartment. I returned home to find the locks had been changed. A note pinned to the door informed me that my keys would work on my new front door. He even enclosed a map so I wouldn’t get lost.

Shaking my head, I crumpled up the letter and envelope. I clutched the directions in my other hand like a lifeline as I stumbled back to my car. I took a deep breath to calm myself before opening the door. Another deep inhalation calmed me enough to drive to my new home.

As I turned the corner onto my new street, my mouth fell open. The houses that lined this street reflected wealth. Manicured lawns stretch from perfectly edged sidewalks to precisely trimmed bushes. Large porches held wooden chairs and large flags snapped crisply in a light breeze.

I drove slowly, taking in the whole of my new world. The only other people on the street were a few elderly couples chatting on one lawn and another older man walking a tiny dog with more hair than body. My mouth closed into a tight line as I approached the moving truck parked on the right side of the street.

My new home looked as out of place as I knew I would feel here. Unkempt bushes sprawled across the front of the house. The front lawn resembled a wheat field. The movers broke a path through the waving stalks to heft items from the truck to the house with sagging siding and a missing railing leading up to the porch. I followed the broken path, joining them as they placed the last box on the hardwood floor of the living room.

One of them muttered something as he brushed past me. I didn’t register the words. He didn’t seem to mind. The other remained silent as he pressed himself flat against the doorframe to avoid touching me. I smiled wryly at this, amused by the realization that most men would behave this way toward me now.

Trying to keep my mind from following that train of thought, I began shifting and unpacking boxes. The sun sank behind the horizon before I finally took a moment to breath. With most of the boxes unpacked and placed on the meager furniture that my ex sent with my possessions, nothing remained to distract me.

I stumbled to the couch on putty legs, sinking into the flat cushions. From this vantage point, I could see the great expanse of my sparsely decorated living room. The couch and an equally battered chair sat side by side on one side of the coffee table. An end table sat on the opposite end of the couch. No other furniture cluttered the room, so I faced a blank wall.

Mostly blank. A long, jagged crack arced across the beige surface of aged paint and older plaster. As my weary eyes struggled to stay open, the crack frowned at me. It opened up as if to speak, but no words came out. Wearily, I leaned forward to listen better. Still no words reached my ears.

The thoughts in my mind raced faster and faster as the crack widened into a long oval. Images flashed across the opening that made me smile before they made me cry. Framed inside the jagged oval, my fondest memories with my ex husband from our first meeting to our marriage to the last time I remember feeling that he wasn’t lying when he said he loved me.

The oval widened into a circle and new images appeared. Images of where I once thought I would be now. Children I would never have looked at me with my husband’s dark brown eyes. My husband held my hand as we walked on a beach for our thirtieth anniversary. The tears began to flow, smearing the images until the circle shrank to an oval and stretched back into a simple crack on an empty wall.

The thoughts in my mind slowed. Soon the cacophony of thought and emotion died down. I could hear a single sentence flowing from synapse to synapse.

When the past and the present meet, that is where I die. The crack in the wall laughs at the words that flow through my mind.

“My new house is perfect. It’s cracked like me.” I laughed harshly for a moment before tears washed down my face again.