Day 320 - Without Story

Without Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Hearing the voice didn’t bother Nate. Hearing the message end abruptly always did. It was a morbid habit. There were too many records – video, audio, photo, digital, cyber, social… There were too many ways that Lauren was still there. She asked him questions, told him stories, participated in his life. Even if it was all in the past, it was still in his present. He hadn’t let go. He didn’t know how to let go. He could be happy or sad. He could be melancholic or ecstatic. She could make him all these things. She could be gone and yet remain. He would never be rid of her, not even if he wanted to be.

Lauren’s singing voice was like a ghost. She was quiet but strong, moody and intense. She was emotion in a musical note form. Her voice carried love and pain and made him want to weep. He wanted to reach out and touch her. It sounded like love. It sounded like understanding. He was the most important man in the universe and she was only singing to him. She made him feel special, wanted, needed. Even when she hadn’t known him yet, he always thought she was singing to him.

Nate didn’t take risks. But he did with her. He heard a voice in the night and knew he was in love. Lauren just didn’t know it yet.

But that was a long time ago.

Lauren had all the potential in the world.

Nate drove fast at night. Sometimes he would turn his headlights off and feel the rush of the fear of death. It was the dumbest thing he did, especially considering Lauren. But he hated himself, hated life. He didn’t care anymore. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, but he thought about it a lot. He was so alone. So lost. But he always turned the lights back on. He always slowed down.

He should have deleted the messages. A million times he tried. A million times he failed. He told himself he would. He promised himself he would. He wrote lists about why he should. Therapists told him he should. Instead he drove too fast and listened and cried and wished for a different life.

Lauren sounded so happy in the last message. She didn’t always sound happy. Things weren’t always good. She had a pain in her heart for no good reason other than it was what was real. But she was one of the lucky ones. Sometimes she could take that pain and make something so beautiful. Sometimes the pain won.

But not in that last phone call. The pain was non-existent. She was happy. She sounded so happy. Life was no different, except that it felt different. It felt full of hope and promise and opportunity. She was ready. She sounded ready for him. Ready for success. Ready for life.

And then the message was abruptly cut off.

Nate should have gotten rid of everything, but he just couldn’t bring himself to. He couldn’t bring himself to be without her. Not yet. He wasn’t ready yet. It was torturous and lonely and awful, but he couldn’t be without her quite yet.