Five Minute Fiction Monday is an ongoing experiment. The goal: To write as much as I can in five minutes. Don’t think. Let the fingers do the work. Once done, walk away then come back later to clean it up.
Enjoy?
Departing
The room was quiet, sterile, and cold.
She sat on a stainless steel stool and looked over at Tom, whose passive eyes never stopped studying her face.
She thinks back to the day when she first saw him, splashing around in the water, making googley eyes at all the girls. But on that day, when they first locked eyes on each other, something clicked, and a connection was made that neither one of them could deny. Ignoring everything and everyone else, he slowly made his way towards her, she opened wide her arms, and without a single word exchanged between them, they embraced. And from that moment on they were inseparable.
For the past sixteen years they were at each other’s side. They lounged lazily on the grass on sunny days as she read a book to him, cuddled together under a warm blanket during stormy nights, and spooned on the couch while watching classic black and white movies that she loved so much.
And every morning he would awake first, silently roll over, and lovingly watch her as she slept.
She couldn’t imagine her life without him.
But today, right now, she sits on this cold seat in this impersonal room, watching Tom and the subtle rise and fall of his stomach each time he takes a shallow breath, and she tries not to cry.
Tom looks at her in his contented way with nothing but her in his thoughts, even as the doctor applies the injection. “It’s for the best,” he says, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze as he exits the room.
And the old cat, still looking at her, his gaze never wavering, softly lays his head down, blinks once, and is lost to her forever.
