I woke up yesterday thinking that you would be next to me. I placed my head in your pillow, deeply inhaling trace remnants of your scent. You were there—in a way.
And this morning, I awoke and made breakfast for two, one egg cooked hard the other over easy. I hate when my eggs are runny. The bacon was cooked to where it was a little raw when you know I like it crispy, almost burned.
I think I will wake up tomorrow and hear you in the shower, whistling faint sounds of the song you heard on the radio coming home from work. I will hear the water splashing against your skin and the gentle hum in your throat from relaxation.
And the next day, I think, Reiji will call. He will talk about nothing, just saying words to pass the time and hear my voice to make sure it's still there—that it will stay. I have never known Reiji to talk about nothing, but I think he wants to ease the pain in my voice like sweet honey.
Next week, perhaps I will take the urn filled with your grey ashes that I have hidden in your office next to your hidden issues of vintage Playboy, and go to Japan. I will take it to the ocean where the water would lap at your ankles, and your toes would shift gently against tiny grains of sand. I will throw your ashes, let them spread through the air and be carried away on its gentle back.
When I return home after visiting you brother and mother (for your father passed away long ago), I will still have you on my hands. Little grey specks that remain etched on my fingerprints no matter how many times I scrub with soap.
I am scared, truly and indefinitely, that I will wake up every morning with you in the house. You are everywhere. In picture frames, in clothes, in sweet memories of movies watched on the couch or songs played for you on the piano. I want to take an eraser, like the ones used on chalkboards and run it through the house, brushing away every image and sound of you.
But I forget, those erasers leave traces chalk clinging to the board.