“This is going to be a sad story.” She said, fingers stirring her morning coffee. Her eyes did not look at him, but instead at the notepad beside her plate. Fried eggs with ham and peppers. Her favorite, with a bit of ketchup on the side. He had made them just a few minutes before, taking care to make sure they were perfect, for her. Of course, he thought everything should be perfect for her.

When did she say this? He tried to remember. Was that last week, or tomorrow? Days blended into each other like colors in a child’s finger-painting. Red and pink and orange and green and purple. She would’ve hated this. Being horribly particular about things was her trademark. If she was a cat, and he lost her, he would’ve put “Particular” as a defining characteristic. He remembered clearly the tapping of her typewriter, rhythmic and trite, and … what was that word she used? Iambic. He didn’t know what it meant, but he enjoyed the sound of it as much as he enjoyed the sound of her voice saying it. That sound of keys pressing ink to paper soon replaced her heartbeat, her steps, and her words. He needed only to listen for that tapping to know she was there. Everything else seemed irrelevant. He rather missed all those other sounds. He missed looking into her eyes when she woke up, or listening for the sound of her steps down the hall.

As all other signs of life were replaced by that solitary, rhythmic sound that signified her existence, he was also replaced in her mind by other, more interesting personalities. The voices in her head, projecting themselves on paper and in dreams, promised her things he would never even think she wanted. They would never let her down or come home late reeking of cigarettes and booze. They would always be there; all she needed to do was close her eyes and she would be wisked away to an existence far more becoming than this. An existence of regal dinners and beautiful men and women dancing to lovely music. There, there would be no such thing as cold coffee, under-fried eggs oozing with slimy yolk in the morning, or final notice bill payments.

As he was replaced, he in turn began to replace her. Slowly, but surely, he started to turn to other things which were almost like her. He found great pleasure in running her pearl necklaces over his lips; the pearls were cold and lackluster, and reminded him of a photograph he once saw of his mother in the sixties. They did not bear her scent, like the pillowcases or embroidered handkerchiefs did. Around the time she started sleeping in the front room, he took to washing and ironing her summer dresses. The wet silky fabric reminded him of those far-away times when they would run through the rain, laughing and holding hands. He would remember the drops of water on her firm, smooth breasts, her wet eyelashes and hair. Her hair always curled when it was wet, and would cling to her back and neck. The same dress, white with an abstract pattern of red poppies, reminded him of sunshine, when it was being swept by the wind. Like a collage, he pieced a new her together from old memories, to replace the old her which, unbeknownst to him, had already done the same long ago.

There was something else he remembered, but only later on, after the lights had gone and the metal bars have slid into their place with a loud clank. This is going to be a sad story. He remembered that rhythmic tap late in the night, and getting out of bed. He remembered his hand blindly searching for the comfort of those pearls and an idea suddenly turning on his brain. It was already there the while time, but it’s been turned off, like a light bulb in an attic. Having never been used, it was bright and full of energy. He remembered his bare feet on the cold tile floor, and the way her back curved, and the impressions the string of cold pearls made in her neck after it was done.