the flowers died on monday

The flowers died on Monday, six days after he did. The dark purples and store colored blues, with a flash of a white rose lay, weeping within their glass vase.

Six days, I repeated.

Six, long, blurry, truly terrifyingly alone, days. The house, his room, still smell's like him. A waft of men's cologne, a little taste of sweat and his laundry detergent -- fresh "no scent".

Your clothes shouldn't smell like you just frolicked through a damn field, he would say. Stuffing the washer always too full. He was to the point -- no frivolousness, if not deserved. His black Nike tennis shoes haunt the entryway, smiling up at me every time I leave, which hasn't been often.

Asking softly, when is he coming home?

I always reply, out loud -- he's not.

Maybe one day they'll get the fucking memo.

His phone, screen cracked and camo case, lays next to the bathroom sink, he was always forgetting it around the house -- odd places. Whenever I would find it and confront him on his lack of care for modern day communication and safety, he would shrug, those round, bulky shoulders, If something happens to me you'll feel it, and he would plaster on that shit-eating grin. Stubble barely poking through, his canines just crooked enough to make him eligible for braces but he didn't want fucking metal in his mouth, my teeth have character.

I stare at it, begging for it to ring, for death to leave a voicemail saying this was all a cruel joke, a test and I passed! Please pass Go and collect two hundred dollars. All the response I get is the silence of his cracked screen. Looking at me expectantly, like it's waiting for him to come home too.

I didn't feel it.

The thought threatens to pull me under, crawl to the kitchen and down the rest of his beer that's in there -- like I have been doing for the past six days. I didn't feel it, not a fucking thing. I slept soundly that night, waking up feeling refreshed, sure he had come home in the night. He was stellar at being silent, a gift from a childhood spent walking on eggshells. It wasn't until his phone smirked up at me and the fan that he slept with wasn't sounding it's gentle and familiar hum that I felt it.

There was no vivid vision, pain lacing my body while I slept -- nothing. I had felt nothing. The alcohol starts to whisper to me, promising a night of blurred memories and a dreamless sleep. I crack it open, tossing the lid onto the floor, to join it's roommates collecting dust. I pour out a bit in the sink, the smell cradling my nose, mixing with the wet slick of my cheeks.

Six days, I say, barley auditable and then I throw the flowers away -- he would have hated them.

***

author's note:

the prompt was "write a story using the line "the flowers died on Monday" and that is what I did. A little heartbreaking scene of the aftermath of death, of losing a love one, and having to carry on. This story is plagued with items of my brother -- who is very much still alive and well. He is the muse in a lot of my stories, though I don't know if he knows that.