When You Disappeared

by John Marrs

‘There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.’ —Franz Kafka ‘Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.’ —Paulo Coelho

It was simply too late; we were irreparable. Stones had been cast and glasshouses lay in shards all around us. Inside I was dead; it was time for my exterior to follow suit.

And as she began to blossom, my decay continued.

It’s remarkable how much ground you can cover by walking without purpose.

The act of picking up a fountain pen and writing a letter was something she missed. She was disappointed that most people found it too time-consuming or old-fashioned to put pen to paper instead of finger to keyboard.

She tried so hard to make Kenny a better fella, but he was born evil. You can’t change nature.’

if you scratch the surface of something perfect, you’ll always find something rotten hidden beneath.

Because the more you trust in someone, the more opportunities you give them to shatter your illusions about them.

Ignorance was bliss, and I’d liked bliss.

It was better to remain on my island than drown in somebody else’s sea.

As much as she hated being controlled by a puppetmaster, she got the feeling she’d have to play along a lot longer before she could cut the strings herself.

He was a sensitive, insular child who carried the weight of the world on his young shoulders at a time when it should have been carrying him. He could make a minor problem ten times worse by dwelling on it rather than sharing it with me.

But fighting my way through small challenges one at a time meant the giant ones were less daunting.

Finally, his brain stopped fighting and his soul began its journey from whence it came, back into the arms of the devil.

‘Tell me because you’re ready and not because you feel you should.’

Our house had not been built of brick, as I’d thought, but of feathers. A wind I couldn’t harness would destroy it whether I was present or not.

At an age where I should have been thinking about taking my foot off the accelerator, I was desperately trying to stay in the car.

I hated them, but by controlling my life, they were saving it.

As she lay before me, I climbed onto our bed, placed my head on her chest and listened to the ever-quieting sound of her heartbeat. Its gentle, diminishing rhythm eased me to sleep where I dreamed of the day my own would do the same. When I awoke, I was alone in the world again.

I found it impossible to concentrate on anything for long, and I’d have to write down my ‘to do’ lists, otherwise I’d forget my chores from one hour to the next. Grief’s malevolence crippled me.

In organising Luca’s tickets, I had unwittingly unlocked Pandora’s box. But what scared me the most wasn’t that I was being forced to confront my past. It was that maybe I was actually ready to.

She and I were collateral damage in a war we were unaware we’d been fighting.

She remembered a time when words from this man mattered. Now they meant nothing.

I always felt worse when I woke up than when I tried getting to sleep. Because for the first few seconds of consciousness, I’d forget what had happened.

the physical pain eased the mental one.

Each time I hurt myself, I’d hope it would take some of hers away, but there was nothing I could possibly have done for that to happen.

Tomorrow, I’d tell myself. I’ll be able to do it tomorrow. And eventually tomorrow came.

Finally he accepted it hadn’t been God, Doreen, Kenneth, Billy, Dougie or Catherine who had caused his suffering, but himself. He’d been so hasty to blame everyone else for not living up to the perfection he’d expected from them, yet he was the least perfect of them all. He’d been the architect of his own misery.