Juliette

JULIETTE
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Sunrise.
She lies amidst a tangle of sheets, chestnut hair falling across unblinking hazel eyes, and watches the delicate sliver of the days first light creep along the far horizon, bathing her in its bloody glow. This is what Mars must look like, she muses. With a sigh, she closes her eyes before the sun can blind them. She cannot move her body at all, not from any injury or malady, but from total lack of will. In her mind, if she moves, her skin will shatter and fall to the carpet in a billion jagged shards. Her bones will disintegrate, turning into useless powder, and the puddle of her blackened soul will drip between the floorboards and disappear into the dirt forever. She refuses to move for fear that if she does she will cease to exist in this last perfect moment of suffering.
Her heart drums slowly, calmly, within her chest, air continues to flow through her lungs, and together they perform the rhythm of her life, a slow, sad, bluesy lament. The more she listens to this archaic melody, the more she thinks of him. She can hear his music in her shallow breath, in the pounding of her skull, and the blood coursing its way through her veins.
Unwilled and unnoticed, her left hand steals away and smoothes the silken sheet where he once lay, where they became one night after night, something like the number eight tipped over on its side, a never ending perfection. Now there are only memories. Now only a ghost holds her at night. Her breath catches, a pause in the beat of an otherwise flawless song, and the stranger at the end of her wrist creeps up to her mouth to hold back the scream that waits there.
Her bloodshot eyes slowly open again, gleaming with the reflection of sunlight on a million unshed tears. She refuses to cry, to feel weak, to admit that he has destroyed her. To believe that she is truly dying and will never again walk in the world she once loved. Her eyes are drawn to the spot where he once lay, so perfect against her naked skin. She had once felt wanted and needed. She had once felt right. From the very moment they’d met, she’d been drawn to him, not like a moth to flame, but like a sailor to the Siren. Something about him was so very special; he lit up like a roman candle in the dark. He was a light house to guide her through troubled waters, yet she was afraid, terrified of his flame and the depth at which he could scorch her soul. In the end she gave in, she couldn’t live without his brilliant, blinding heat, and now here she was, no better off than the night she’d decided to end it all, to taste the bitter blade deep within her flesh.
This time she’d made it easy. No indecision tonight, no bringing the knife to her skin only to cry out in frustration and fling it away. Tonight she was in the arms of her oldest friend, Morphine. Tonight she’d simply fade. No more pain ever again. Her breath catches again, her heartbeat slows to nearly nothing. A single tear traces an icy path down her cheek while a hand she does not control caresses the place he should have been, the place he would be except for one well placed bullet. More than anything else, she wishes she could feel the warmth of him just one more time before slipping into the awaiting abyss. Charon would be cold when he came to take her to the land of the dead in his ancient ship. Her eyes slip closed once more and she knows she will never see another sunrise. Her mind is heavy, her body weightless; she feels she is floating away, leaving behind the ruined, blackened husk of her life. Goodbye sunshine, she thinks as she rises from her worthless body. One more shallow breath, one more tired thud from her ruined heart. Finally, her song is over.