Luella's Calm

        Avery and Luella sat atop their cheap, run down main street apartment complex, watching the street below. It’s a gorgeous sunrise on a gorgeous day, sunlight oozing across the rooftop, highlighting each other’s faces just they way they liked it. Luella always enjoyed Avery’s profile. Which, in retrospect, worked out for her, seeing as she was always at his side.
        Avery looked away from the street below, opting to watch Luella instead. She took a sip of the coffee he had made and brought up for her (despite the fact that he hated coffee), lip rings clanging gently against the porcelain cup. Those lip rings had been a source of joy for Avery since he first laid lips on them, thirteen years ago. He thought of how amazing it was that she kept them in for so long, and wondered if she did so for him. Some things you just keep around, he concluded. His wife certainly fell under that category.
        Luella finished her coffee-- well, "finish," isn't the correct word, really. Luella never finished any drink, perhaps because of backwash, or even that the last drink just tasted funny, for some reason. She wasn't sure which it was, herself. So, she drank the second to last drink of her coffee, holding it in her mouth for a moment, savoring the flavor. Pulling her eyes away from the street, she sat her favorite mug down, and directed her attention to the old man next to her.
        Avery met her gaze. He'd been watching her for the past five minutes, fighting anxiety and trying not to tremble, and it eased his nerves just to have her eyes to stare into. Luella was stronger than him, and he knew it. She could do this whole thing calm. She would do this whole thing calm, he thought, and he loved her for it. Looking into her eyes, Avery knew that they were thinking the same things.
        They were thinking about the last thirteen years. They were thinking about pushing one another out of bed in the middle of the night, asleep and unknowing. They were thinking about funerals and cleaning off gravestones. They were thinking about the week they moved into to their shithole apartment together. They were thinking about spending over a decade there, and not regretting any of it. They were thinking about waking up together, and not being able to do anything but lay there and giggle at each other for the first hour of the day.

        They were thinking, unlike the dead people that shambled in the street below.

        Without a word, the two vacated their chairs, and made their way to the ground floor. So many times they had walked down those stairs, hand in hand, running through and around the starving dead to the grocery and back. Always together. The ground floor was a thing of beauty, illuminated only by the light of the sunrise pouring through the windows. A thick cloud of dust hang in the air, glowing with the sunlight, giving the impression of walking through a sea of light.
        Avery was crying now, failing to contain the tremors that seemed to come from everywhere inside of him. Luella squeezed his hand, and they continued out the front door and into the street, where Avery collapsed, sobbing wildly, and trying to form words that would never make it out of his mouth. He thought of nights when his insomnia kept him up, and he was content to watch his wife sleep for the duration of the night. He thought of all of their quirks, all of their fights, all of their smiles. He thought of all that gone, and it broke him.
        The dead were interested by then, alerted by the wailing of the old man in the street. They began to shamble from all directions, hunger raging inside of them. Luella fell to her knees and cradled Avery against her chest, telling him again and again that she loved him, like she had so many times throughout their aquaintance.

        It was a gorgeous sunrise on a gorgeous day.
        And it was a good day to die.