Unwritten

Bathed in the glow of her laptop, her attention was on the window revealing silhouettes alien to her. A lake she didn't recognize. The reflection of a woman she didn't know.

"This story won't write itself," she sighed, "too bad I'm out of words." She waited afraid, yet stoically for the one whom she knew would come.

She couldn't remember her last decent night's sleep. She was growing resentful of that laptop anyway.

Two hours later, she bolted upright in her bed. Fear rose in her throat and flooded her mouth. It tasted like pennies. She knew this was the night.

He scanned the framed photos on the way to her bedroom. Tribal children smiling, hugging her neck. Photos of her smiling, accepting a diploma at graduation. They all looked fake, like cheap furniture store props. His teeth clenched in his jaw while his hatred boiled, his leather gloves creaking as his grip tightened on the handle of the knife.

Two minutes later she lay bleeding numbly on the bedroom floor. "It's about time" she thought "I was beginning to wonder". The thought that she was about to have the best sleep of her life and the irony the idea represented made her chuckle. The country air provided a fresh breeze through her bedroom windows. Somewhere she heard a calling heron.

The whole scene was so familiar to her, like a play she had rehearsed a hundred times. Dreaming of one's own death over and over is exhausting. She was glad it was done. It would've been great to have had one last cigarette, though.

As he wiped the blade clean with the bright kitchen towel he lamented the lonely laptop on the table. He knew there would be nothing written there. The story hadn't written itself yet.