Member-only story
As We Say Our Goodbyes
a short story
“How has it come to this?” Lawrence silently wondered or possibly not so silently as the nearby patrons of the coffee shop looked his way with a mix of disdain and genuine interest in case the question was the beginning of a riddle.
Lawrence continued to stare out the window with the occasional glance at the window itself as the glasswork was impeccable. He’d grown up with a verging-on-concerning appreciation for glass.
And, as he sat, completely oblivious to his surroundings — one of his defining features — he remembered the early days; when he and Suzanne first met.
Those early days were dominated by colours — reds and greens and whatever colour was created when you mixed red and green together, he didn’t know and didn’t care to find out — as well as a cacophony of sounds and copious amounts of rough sandpaper that they bought on a whim and then had no real idea how to use.
They wanted those early days to go on forever until they were told — repeatedly by their increasingly-frustrated couples counsellor who also doubled as a increasingly-frustrated coat rack — that they seemed to be struggling with a full understanding of the terms “early” and “forever” and “days”.
And then, almost over night, the cracks started to appear. And then, as cracks often did…