text: First time writing in almost 10 years, this is a plot line I have that I've always loved, which I've re-written in a different way so I can see what my writing is like ten years on. Thank you! ---- There are those sounds again of birds chirping and cars humming. Rays seeping through the uncovered gaps in the curtains begging me to finally wake up and get out of our bed, I feel a chill and slight melancholy - but why? I shrug it off, coffee time. I have a week off, bosses orders I’m not sure why he’s being so kind as I haven’t had a week off since I started my job. I sluggishly put my dressing gown on and head to the kitchen to see what I can muster up. “You’re finally awake, are you?” giggled a sleek silhouette behind the counter. “I’m not sure what you mean!” I paused, with a smirk. “You’re right, I just feel different today, sorry” “Don’t ever be sorry, do you want some coffee, love?” As the shadow began pottering away. My wife, my muse, my soul-bound lover. She always knows what to say, always knows what to do when I’m depressed - but why do I feel so alone right now? Life’s many mysteries I assume and plop myself down on the settee. Everything is so dark today, I can barely see my own wife but I feel her there and that’s good enough for me. The warmth of the coffee passed my lips as it filled my soul again with life. “Hun, as usual this is a great cup of coffee” I yelled from the living room to the kitchen not taking my eyes off this morning’s football results. Silence. She must have gone to get ready for our morning walk. I can’t wait to see her in one of her cute navy dresses she’s always spinning and twirling in, like a natural ballerina. “Where do you want to walk today? I was thinking of the riverside by that old church you’ve always liked - “ I pause. I feel a vibration within my pocket, who could possibly be calling me today? No one usually calls me on my days off except my wife, and of course she’s right here. I dig into my pocket and slip out my mobile with a reluctant sigh. “Hi honey” the voice shakily starts. “Morning, mum. Are you feeling okay? This is unusual” I inquisitively ask. “Do you not remember what day it is?” my mother has a concerned tone in her voice now. “No, it’s just my day off. Charlotte and I are just making coffee” I start to hear a soft sobbing on the other end of the phone. “It’s the 5th of June, your wife’s funeral is today” she quivers. “That’s impossible, she’s in the kitchen making breakfast” I chuckle. I brought the phone down to my chest. Mothers do say the darndest things sometimes, I wish she wasn’t playing such a cruel joke so early in the morning though. She knows how I get when I haven’t had my coffee yet. I took a deep sigh and placed the phone back to my ear, all I could hear was the sniffling and sobbing. Mum bursts out crying and all I heard was: “Charlotte is dead, Nick. It’s been two months and she's not here anymore. Look at the shadows, Nick. Look at what they really are!” I hear a sudden break in the telephone connection, she hung up. My heart rate is increasing now, I start to slowly look from the counter that I hung my head, to the corner where my wife was supposed to be. Just a cupboard, nothing else. That’s when it all came back to me, each tear at a time... it came back. Piercing sirens and blinding blue lights, shouting and crying with a car now slowly being lost to the blue abyss. I was frozen, out of body and out of mind... reliving a Hell my brain must have locked away for my own safety. I clutch my chest where my heart would be with an ache, not a dull one, but a million knives slicing at my will to live now. My throat is closing up, I can’t breathe a simulation of suffocating but it feels real. This explains the week off, this explains the sorrow I woke up with. My journey through life in these two months was nothing but a walk in the darkness, I never saw where I went, I never saw where I left, all I thought about was her. But I’m here now, Charlotte. I'm beside you. I’m at your grave, I’m sorry. I love you. The gravestone read: 1991 - 2020 Charlotte Bishop ‘Heart of steel, as a wife and as a lover.