White

~ A literary flash fiction piece ~

Piece #2 in my flash fiction series - Colours Of The World.

Enjoy!

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The picture frame slips from my shaking fingers and shatters on the blanched tiles beneath me. I flinch.

I’m standing beside a desk. Moments ago, the picture frame had been hidden within the darkness of the desk’s drawer. It had been there for six years now, out of sight and out of mind.

No, not out of mind. It couldn’t be. I didn’t want it to be.

Something wet slips from my eyes, streaking down my cheeks and coming to rest on the floor below.

I clench my fist at my side as a silent sob shakes my body. But I’m not just crying from grief. I’m crying from relief. And that’s what hurts.

Now, the remnants of a memory litter the tiles at my feet. Shattered. Like my heart.

No. My heart is not shattered. That had happened years ago, when my mother died, and my father left, winding up in prison barely a year later.

Over the years, I’d stuck what remained of it back together, but I hadn’t done it alone. That had been the difference. For the first time in my life, I hadn’t been alone. I had Him.

Since the moment He’d called me, I’d been different. But I wasn’t healed. Not yet.

Because ever since my father left, there’d been silence. Aching, deafening silence.

I pick up a glass from the kitchen counter and sip it, letting the cool, refreshing water slide down my throat.

The realisation that’s been creeping up on me for days now once more presses itself into my thoughts.

This time, I don’t shut it down. I can’t. Not now.

I throw my coat over my shoulders and tug the sleeves on as I leave the apartment, having at least enough presence of mind to lock the door behind me.

Perhaps people stare at me, the girl with messy hair, dishevelled clothes and a tear-streaked face, but I don’t see them.

Then I arrive.

I pause, wrapping my arm around one of the cold bars holding up the gate of the cemetery.

My eyes are dry now, but the whipping wind beats against them, making the stickiness of my face only feel worse.

I draw in a shuddering breath and step forward, my eyes immediately finding the newest of the graves that fill the field before me.

I read the words on the plain headstone, despite the fact that I know all three names by heart.

Then, I step closer, dropping to my knees on the soft green turf. I clutch grass in my palms and dig my fingers into cool, wet dirt as I read the name over and over again, trying to reconcile it with the man I know.

I can’t go on like this. He’s gone, but unless I do something, he’ll forever live on as an image of desertion and cruelty within me.

I don’t want that. It doesn’t have to be that way, I know it. But how can I change what became irreversible the moment it happened?

Another tear slips down my cheek, but this time it is alone. I close my eyes for a moment… and pray. I can’t do this alone.

Then, my beating heart quiets as five gentle words overwhelm my thoughts.

I am with you always.

With those words, a peace that I cannot explain floods my body.

Surrender your past to Me, and I will give you rest.

I look up, and my eyes rest on a flower peeking through the ground just a few feet in front of me.

Its delicate white petals bend and dip softly in the breeze, but to me, it looks as steady as a rock.

Beauty in a sea of death.

I reach towards it and pluck it from its stem, raising it to my face to breathe in the deep, soft scent.

Then I turn back to my father’s grave, the words I’ve unknowingly been dying to say for so long now finally on my lips.

“I should have done this a long time ago, but I didn’t feel I could. I know you’re gone, and you can’t hear me, but I wanted to tell you something.” I almost choke on the words, but I don’t let that stop me.

I fill my lungs with fresh morning air once more and whisper three words.

“I forgive you.”

Placing the flower on the freshly turned dirt, I stand, my hair rippling behind me.

With one last look, I turn and leave.

As I approach the gates, an elderly couple hobble through them. The woman is clutching a loose knot of roses, and her wrinkled face is lined with tears.

Our eyes meet briefly as she passes me, and there, for the first time in weeks, I smile.