Author's Note: I have no idea where this came from... I haven't written a 'Snapshot' for sooo long, but then this just came to me. It's pretty short and not one of my best, but well... I hope you enjoy it anyway.

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The stagnant stripes of the pillow look the same.

Carefully aligned blue and white traverse the cotton pillowcase, following the smooth curve and swell of the full down pillow encased within. Strokes of colour, journeying alongside each other but never once merging, never bleeding into each other. Just lines, heading in the same direction but never meeting.

The colours are smooth, flowing uninterrupted other than by the single strand of dark hair that lies curving on the centre of the pillow. The only indication of his presence. It isn’t much, but it is everything and you find that your eyes keep straying back to that lone hair, tragically reaped from a full head of similarly silky strands. You have to stop looking at it. You know you have to, but you can’t.

So you rise to your feet in a smooth, fluid motion that doesn’t nothing to show the way you tremble inside as you grab two corners of the pillow, lifting and flapping it over the side of the bed, shaking it free of any reminders. Placing it back onto the mattress, you can see that it is crumpled, creased, but that the accusing strand of hair has now been displaced and no longer occupies the pillow. You smooth it out, fluffing and puffing it and reverently placing it in its spot. It’s the way it should look now- untouched and new, unused and clean. Too clean.

You fall to your feet again, scrabbling desperately about the floor in search of that stray hair you once so desperately wished to be rid of. But now you’re on your hands and knees, scouring the floor, certain that you’ll find what you have already lost. The parquet floor-boards stare back, smooth and varnished but free of any dust, dirt or particles. It isn’t there. Terror swells in your chest and your hands sweep frantically over the ground, fingers quivering as they anticipate the barely-there-brush that would signify the discovery of that lost strand. A single hair.

It seems stupid, ridiculous, absurd as you scavenge the floor, crawling underneath the bed and fighting back the pressure of impending tears when you can’t find a glimpse of the object. It’s only a strand of hair after all. It’s only a reminder of him.

But then again, everything else has gone. There are empty hangers in the closet, one set of keys on the coffee table, and only a single razor by the sink. The empty packet from the muesli he loves left with the trash this morning and only your food stocks the fridge. It’s like he was never here to begin with. –Even the condoms and lube have been neatly hidden in your nightstand drawer, with not a single trace of last night.

It’s funny how quickly things can happen. One minute everything is right and in the blink of an eye your world has collapsed at your feet to the soundtrack of the front-door slamming. The car-trunk is popped open and loaded with bags and boxes and you step outside clad only in that tattered old grey t-shirt you borrowed from him but never gave back and a pair of boxers that let the breeze in too much. It’s when he moves back inside the house to collect one last box that you move, suddenly, reaching out a hand and clasping him on the shoulder in a motion that begs and pleads with him to stay. But he shakes you off and trudges up the stairs and you follow in desperate silence, hoping that your mere presence will be enough to make him realise how wrong this all is.

And then you kiss him, sealing your lips over his in a last frantic attempt that steers you both towards the bed. Clothes fall away like the lies of love and the hours you spend together are all over in a moment. He lay, with his head on that blue and white striped pillow, gazing at the ceiling and whispering that it was a mistake. That he was still going to leave and that he was sorry.

You cannot find what it is that you’ve been looking for, that single strand of hair that curled at the centre of the pillow. The parquet floor-boards stare back, smooth and varnished but free of any dust, dirt or particles. It isn’t there. He really has gone. That final reminder of him has fallen down into the cracks between the floor-boards, down to be lost in dust and remnants of years past.

So you sit, slumped against the bed-frame, crying into your hands over the lost reminder left on the pillow where he last lay his head.