The Ghost of You
"I will come back a hero so wait for me, okay?"
The words haunted him to this very day, six months after Alfred returned in a coffin. The days now dragged in a colourless blur of work and sleep, peppered with the occasional visit from a concerned friend or family checking up on him, asking if he was alright.
"I'm fine," he always told them, feebly.
He had thrown himself into work, took extra shifts and worked overtime, and took up volunteering on the side. When he wasn't working, he stayed home and lay under covers until it was time to go back to the office. He stopped going out. He stopped looking after his appearance. It had all ceased to matter beyond brushing and shaving and ensuring he had clean clothes for work.
"Have you been eating?"
He looked up distractedly from the copy machine and found Ludwig, his colleague, standing with a pot of freshly brewed coffee.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Ludwig's brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Arthur snatched up his documents and fled back to his cubicle before he could hear it.
The apartment was full of memories of Alfred – clothes he had left behind, packets of his favourite flavoured gum in the kitchen drawer, holiday snaps from their summer in Greece stuck to the fridge. A copy of The Da Vinci Code lay on a little table on his side of the bed, still bookmarked where he last left it off. It hurt to be reminded of Alfred, yet Arthur couldn't bring himself to throw away his belongings.
The thought of forgetting Alfred scared him more than anything else.
Entry for Day 2 of the 30 Days Of Writing A Drabble A Day Challenge.
Author's comment
This was very difficult to write. I have yet to lose a loved one (of which I am very grateful for), so writing about grief did not come easily. This was written almost two weeks ago, but I felt the need to keep it and revise it for some time. It is complete, for the time being, if not perfect. However, I can see myself returning to it one day and expanding the story.