Wednesday, April 16, 2008

this is fiction. fyi.

Inspired by an actual flyer.

Dress For Sale, Never Worn. Size 8, No Alterations Made. $350 $250 OBO.

It's usually in the closet, but I take it out to look at it sometimes. I picture myself wearing it, and we're drinking champagne with our arms interlocked like people in movies do. That's what I saw the first time I tried it on, when your mother said, "oh, honey..." and the sales girl told me I looked fantastic.

I never pictured replacing it with a drab black suit. Of stepping out of a resplendent, glowing, bright-white dream and into a heavy, suffocating cloak.

"Oh, honey..." your mother said to me when we stood next to black Crown Vics at the edge of the green expanse. I was staring out at the rows and rows of you. Other people that were like you. People who meant something to somebody like you did to me.

I took it out of the closet and lay it on my bed, and thought about the hundred-and-fifty phone calls that had to be made. The photographs that weren't taken, the cake that wasn't shared, the music that wasn't danced to, or even played at all.

I keep having dreams that I'm standing alone inside the reception hall. You promised to meet me there; you promised, so where are you? And I say your name out loud, and it echoes empty through the room.

When I'm awake, my thoughts echo empty in my mind.

When I came home from the funeral, I tore the drab black suit from my body, like I couldn't get out of it fast enough, like its heavy, unbreathable material was tightening
tightening
tightening.

And I fell down on my bed next to the dress, still lying where I'd been looking at it earlier this morning, and with pieces of silk and lace in my hands, I fell asleep.

This morning I made a flyer, and I asked a third of what I bought it for. Then in the car, on the way to post the flyer, I hastily crossed out the price and lowered it by $100.

I can't keep dreaming about the empty reception hall or my echoing voice or your mother saying, "oh, honey," to me while I slowly drift away.

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