Where Is Your Heart
The CD player sings a sad song about a dying love as my hands slip once again into the luke warm water. Greasy bubbles slosh over the side, making my t-shirt wet, again, but I don’t care. By this point I am utterly broken, just a ghost of who I used to be. There’s no point arguing, no point talking about how we always said we’d divide the chores up equally. I shall do it all, as ever, because you’re at home all day with the kids.
I’m out all day at work, which, to you, means I sit around all day doing nothing. I surf the internet all day while you’re hard at work, doing what? Certainly not cleaning, that’s for sure, and the kids are at nursery half the time. So what is it you do exactly?
Well, I know what the boys playing football outside our house say you do. I try to ignore them. You tell me that he’s been round for a cup of tea, you tell me that so I won’t worry that anything else is going on. Yeah. Sure. I don’t worry…
To be honest, at this point, I don’t really care. I stopped caring a long time ago, it just got too hard. It became easier not to fight, not to say anything. To just accept that this was the way things were and to get on with life. Happiness was a luxury, after all.
But now with my hands in the water, and this song playing, I can’t stop the tears from coming.
“And I’ve always dreamed that love would be effortless, like a petal fallin’ to the ground, a dreamer followin’ his dream.”
Just a stupid, foolish dream. Love like that only belongs in songs, it’s time to stop dreaming, to give up on romance. No, who am I fooling, I gave up on that dream a long time ago. Maybe it’s time to give up on something else, and start again.
Maybe, who knows, but just maybe, somewhere out there, love’s still waiting for me.
Bridgeen
I like this Ian. Its a little bit heart breaking. I had to go a read it a couple of times before i realised its from the man’s point of view. And i like the subtle suggestion that all is not what it seems when he is at work either.
A great example too of using the image as a spring board and not sticking slavishly to its contents.
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iansharman
Oh, crumbs, it hadn’t occurred to me that it wasn’t obvious that it’s from the man’s point of view.
Heartbreaking? Yes… But there’s a happy ending, just see http://elephantwords.co.uk/2009/08/06/river-of-dreams/ and http://elephantwords.co.uk/2010/01/09/goodnight-chicago/
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Rivka Jacobs
A moving and deceptively simple story. Personal, yet anyone who has been in a failing marriage can relate. This is a moment of revelation, a moment of breakdown and understanding, an acceptance of what has failed. But the narrator retains hope for what could be again, in another place, another time.
You manage to evoke so much emotion from a short piece, Ian. Great use of language, too.
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