v. Filled All the Spaces

“I’m leaving,” he said one day. He picked up his bad and started throwing clothes in it. At first I stared at him, and then I said with a laugh, “No, you’re not.” What an absurd idea! He would never leave! But he said, “Yes, I am.” I smiled, still under the impression that this was all a big joke. “And where will you go?” “Anywhere that isn’t here,” he said sharply. “You can’t be serious,” I said. I was slowly starting to get it. “I’m completely serious,” he said. Panic set in. He packed more things – clothes, the alarm clock on his bedside table, his guitar hanging on the wall. He packed everything but the photographs. “Where will you go?” I asked again. “I don’t know. But you pointing out that I have nowhere to go won’t keep me from leaving.” My breathing grew heavier. “What about ,e?” I asked. “You’ll survive,” he said coldly. “How do you know?” “I just do. Love can save you, but it won’t kill you,” he said. “But what about all the spaces?” I asked. “Fill them up,” he said as he closed the door. When he was gone, I looked around the room. There were spots on the walls where the sun had faded the paint around the paintings he’d taken with him. The furniture remained, but the room felt so empty. A small shoe box was on the floor by th door, its lid completely askew. I opened up the box to find half of all our photographs. Each picture was ripped right down the middle so that all that was left was me. Ten I looked at the floor, where I realized that there was not nearly enough pairs of under-garments or socks. I sighed and put myself to work. I went out to the store to pick up some men’s socks and underwear, boxer-briefs, to be precise. I put one sock on the doorknob to the bathroom, another on the empty bedside table. I also threw a few on the floor, just for good measure. Then I put a pair of boxer briefs on the bed, where he used to lay them out after he wore them because he was too damn lazy to just toss them in the hamper. I searched the house for an extra toothbrush I found in the linen closet and put it in the toothbrush holder in the bathroom. I wet down one of the towels and tossed it, too, on the bathroom floor. It still didn’t feel right, so I went to the box of photographs and started putting them together, taping the half-photographs so that they were whole ones. Often I would be in both halves of the photograph, and then it didn’t really make sense, but it didn’t have to. But it still didn’t feel right. So I took some black paint and painted the walls with words – “I don’t love you, I don’t need you, you just take up space,” and I kept painting words until the walls were completely black and I’d filled all the spaces, but somehow, and I really couldn’t tell you how, it still didn’t feel quite right.