After much deliberation, I have decided to publish this story, which is my first Amelia-centric story. Gimme your thoughts, I relish them all.

As for the title, I don't much care for it, but I can't think of anything else at the moment, so this is it for now. If you've any ideas, let me know.

As Time Goes By

The echo of the door closing bounced hollowly off the walls of the house. The entrance hall was trimmed with white wood about a third of the way up the wall, where it was replaced with red wallpaper, adored with golden fleur-de-lis. A dark mahogany table rested against one wall, beneath a rectangular mirror ensconced in a golden frame. On the table was a porcelain bowl, perhaps white, though it was hard to tell under the many things that filled it, overflowing onto the table. Off to the side of the door was a potted plant; a small tree of some kind, with broad, dark green leaves. Narrow windows from floor to ceiling on either side of the door and a long rug leading deeper into the house completed it.

Following the sound of the door was the equally hollow clicking and clanging of the keys dropping into the packed bowl on the table. There was the thump of her purse on the floor along with her coat; she couldn't even be bothered to put them away where they went.

Amelia F. Jones was not a neat person to begin with, but of late even her apathy had grown out of proportion. Usually her slovenliness stemmed from the fact that she was bursting at the seams with energy and plans and activity and simply couldn't be bothered to remember or take the time to clean up, but these days she had nothing but time and no desire to fill it with anything.

She went into the kitchen, looked around and considered making herself some dinner. She glanced at the clock. It was 5: 24. She had just gotten home from work, as she'd been given permission to leave early today. She looked at the stove and then turned around and went into the living room, where she collapsed on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

The living room was on the other side of the entrance hall, with a great big French window looking out into the garden that had once been very well and lovingly kept. The couch was red and across from it was a fireplace with various trinkets on the white mantle. A pair of armchairs sat nearby, around a square carpet and a squat, yet elegant, coffee table. There were a few bookshelves of various size squeezed into the room.

Reaching over the arm of the couch and moving as little as possible, Amelia pressed a button on her landline to hear the messages she'd gotten in the past week, making a mental note to consider listening to them more often.

The first was from the public library, informing her that she had a book which was four months overdue.

The second was from her foster father, Arthur, telling her that she really did need to call him back and would she please do so in a timely fashion? She was being quite rude by ignoring her friends at a time like this. Amelia supposed that was his way of trying to reach out to her.

The last was the only one Amelia really listened to; it was from her twin sister Madeline, pleading for her to call. Madeline was quite adamant about it; she even threatened with coming down from her home in New Brunswick, Canada, to Amelia's home in Maine to force Amelia to talk to her. Amelia appreciated her concern, but she didn't feel like talking. She deleted the messages.

She lay on the couch, taking a pillow to huge against her chest, and looked up at the ceiling, which had funny little bumps on it. They were supposed to absorb sound, but the running joke amongst friends and family had been that nothing could tame the racket that followed Amelia around like a cloud, whether it be from her boisterous, enthusiastic tone or the many things she slammed around or knocked over. Lately though, it was all she could not to lie on this couch all day and stare listlessly at the ceiling. That was the word she had overheard Arthur using to his husband Francis about her: listless. It was apt enough, Amelia thought, though she didn't think she liked it being applied to her. Listless wasn't something she'd have ever thought would be used to describe her. Vibrant. Loud. Full of life. Obnoxious, even. But not listless.

And yet, listless she was. She made an effort to draw herself into a sitting position and set the pillow aside. At that moment, her dog-a small, tan creature-wandered up to her and snuffled her hand.

"I guess you want a walk, eh boy?" she asked him. From the tone she used, she might as well have been asking if he wanted her to pull the plug on his life support. Even the dog had been picking up on Amelia's mood; both he and the cat remained oddly quiet in her time of distress.

Heaving herself of the couch was a herculean task, but she managed. She attached the dog's leash and replaced her coat; the one she had thrown on the floor when she entered. Grabbing a hat from the closet, she opened up the front door and they went down the set of four white steps that led into the yard. A cool breeze blew over them, rustling the trees and promising an end to summer soon. Amelia couldn't wait. Summer had always been her favorite season-the one she was born in, on a scorching July day-but this summer felt as though it had dragged on for eons. She led the dog at a slow pace down the sidewalk, allotting him plenty of time to sniff at plants and "get the news". Her feet seemed to be carrying her somewhere of their own accord; her mind was a million miles away; a foggy, distant look in her normally alert blue eyes.

The walk was a long one, but by the time she realized where her feet were taking her, she couldn't turn around. She was both repulsed and drawn in by the path ahead of her and she knew she couldn't bail out now. Down the cracked sidewalk, past the wrought iron fence, through the foreboding gate. Gray clouds drifted overhead, hovering threateningly at the edge of the sky, as if to remind the sun it had only so many days left to shine unobstructed. Amelia closed the gate behind her and let go of the leash; she trusted the dog not to run away. Her feet wandered through a twisted path, giving obstacles around her a wide berth until at last she came to the end of her trek and fell to her knees in the grass. In front of her was a headstone, a simple affair with just a few words carved into it. Amelia reached out and traced them with her fingertips. They were as familiar to her as her own name; she often dreamt about these very words, carved into this very stone.

Kiku Honda

1976-2012

Beloved husband, avid gamer and shrewd businessman

It was her husband's headstone.

Amelia sensed the dog straying and called out quietly to him, "Pochi…come here…" He trotted back over to her and she drew him onto her lap, muddy paws and all, staring over his head at the grave. Her husband had been just 36 when he died. Amelia herself was only 28, which had raised quite a few eyebrows when she had gotten married at the age of 22 to a 30 year old. But she had always been sure that Kiku was the one; she had never doubted it, not for a minute. Not even when he himself might have been doubting it.

Amelia gave her all into everything she did; no undertaking of Amelia's was half-hearted. And thus, she had loved Kiku with everything in her, she had given him over every part of her heart, surrendered herself entirely to their love and losing him had been the most devastating event in her life, even more so than when she had been forced into court to demand to be taken out of her foster father Arthur's care.

It had been two months since Kiku's death and Amelia hadn't recovered in the slightest. She had rather become a hermit and refused all calls from friends and family. When they came over, she pretended not to be home. She hardly spoke at work and had lost all interest in her hobbies. It had been five weeks since she last picked up her gaming controller and played some Halo or Call of Duty. These were things she had once taken the utmost pleasure in.

She had tried, a few weeks after his death, late one night. She had thought that a bit of video gaming might take her mind off of it, but when she opened up the load screen, she saw his game sitting there, right beneath hers. He still had the high score-she had been trying to beat it for days and hadn't managed before he died. She had thrown the controller away as though it were a large and poisonous spider and spent the next hour sobbing into a pillow while Tama, the cat, sat by on a worn recliner and watched with disapproval at her noisy display.

She hadn't tried again since. In fact, she avoided the den altogether-which was easy to do, as it was one of only three rooms downstairs in the basement, including a bathroom and the laundry room. Video games had been one of the things she and Kiku had bonded over in the friendship that came before their romance. She couldn't bear to play them anymore; she couldn't do it without remembering countless hours spent shouting and cursing and cheering and spitting back and forth taunts and banter between her and Kiku; the way they would both bundle up and go stand out in the cold to await a new game like the nerds they were or the stress of choosing the perfect cosplay for a gaming convention; their unspoken agreement to team up against anyone who dared to play with the both of them.

Even thinking about him still brought tears to her eyes and she pressed her face into Pochi's fur as the moist globules began to slide down her cheeks once again. She hugged the dog close and stared at Kiku's grave as if she was waiting for him to speak to her, to tell her what she was supposed to do now and when he didn't, the fury that overwhelmed her almost choked her. She coughed out a sob and squeezed Pochi until he whimpered to be let go.

"Sorry," she whispered to him, releasing him and trying to dry her eyes on her coat sleeve. She gave a tug at her hair, which was limp and lanky: she hadn't washed it in days. She got into the shower, stood in the burning water for a while and then got back out without bothering to wash anything. She didn't even have the energy or willpower to shower anymore.

The whole time she'd been with Kiku, it had seemed like he was the one dependent on her. Amelia was such a wild, free spirit that everyone assumed she'd be perfectly fine to leave him and go on her own way, though she would grieve, but when Kiku finally confessed (AT LAST!) his love to her, everyone-Kiku and Amelia included-thought him much more dependent on Amelia's love than she was on his. She knew now how wrong they all were-she was lost now, without her beloved. Whereas before she had always known herself, had always had a plan and a can-do attitude, she felt as though some great and vital part of her had been violently torn out when she lost Kiku and that she was now just drifting about, a shade of her former self, half dead herself and just waiting to rejoin him and the thought of her own uselessness and inevitable death terrified her. She barely slept most nights and had dark circles under her eyes.

Evening was stretching into nighttime now; the sky was deepening into a twilight purple and she knew she had to get home now. She retrieved Pochi and left the graveyard, shuffling home and wiping the tearstains off her sun-kissed cheeks.

At home, she cooked her usual dinner of top ramen and ate in silence before retiring to her room, reading for a while and then turning off the light. She didn't sleep more than four hours in total that night, not counting the nightmares.