Nothing Terribly Wrong

A memory resurfaces into the mind of a woman forcing her to collapse in a street surrounded by strangers. What was that memory?

In a moment I neglected my senses standing on the street. Moments before my mind refused to let gravity take hold but my body gave as I fell and thought the thought that nothing is terribly wrong. My knees knelt then my weight buckled in and I collapsed to the cement smacking my head hard. I stared up to the crowd surrounded and panicked as the faces flashed in and out and voices turned like television channels changing rapidly. I felt the sudden feeling that nothing was terribly wrong. My eyes blinked black and my head throbbed with pain. The crowd came in and I felt enclosed in a cage, no, a box and the lid locked and black is all my eyes saw. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted the strangers to disperse and leave me alone. Feeling a feeling that nothing was terribly wrong.

A question lay in the air my ears grasped and heard, “what happened to her?” I gathered my thoughts and thought that I was fine but my vocal cords were wounded and could not communicate. My head throbbed. “She just fell,” someone said. “Look at her face.” Thoughts formed in my head of what I must have looked like laying there on the cement street square. I fought with the might of gravity and placed my weight on my thighs and with the help of an unknown person I lifted myself up and spoke, “nothing is terribly wrong.”

Words floated from strangers that I understood. Suggestions like help and hospital and nine one one. I shrugged off heeds of worded wisdom and pleas from people I hardly knew and stumbled my way from the street I had fallen face flat on and the crowd of people I much rather be away from and leaned on a street lamp pole collapsing to the ground as I did. More than ever I needed to find my love, my beloved dear husband. I brushed grains of dirt and grime from my face that stuck like glue and I thought thoughts of my beloved you and thought the continuous thought that nothing was terribly wrong.

I forced my hand in my pants pocket and searched for my phone. The rectangular outline revealed itself through my pants but I felt nothing. Again I thrust my hand in my pocket and a mental flash revealed itself to me that I went for the wrong pocket. My head throbbed and pounded and I thought that everything was fine. I pulled out my phone from the correct pocket and hit four, two, one, eight. I tapped contacts and scrolled to the letter “B” and found my babe yet something ominous told me not to tap the screen once more. Something there inside my mind going against the thought that nothing was terribly wrong.

I tapped lightly on the screen and waited for it to dial. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty seconds went by and nothing. My beloved dear husband remained silent and never picked up. My heart shattered and fell to pieces upon the ground and I hoped and retained that nothing was terribly wrong. I needed to speak to him more than ever, for right then I knew not where I was and why I picked myself up from the street pavement and why I was wondering that nothing was terribly wrong.

Not knowing where I was sitting below the street lamp pole I opened my phone maps to discover where I lay. I called a ride to pick me up and take me home. Thoughts crept and crept in my mind and I wondered what to do when I went home. The comfort of my beloved dear husband was all I needed or care for. I sat to myself and waved off strangers staggering by asking if I needed any help and if I was fine. The mirror image from my phone camera reflected a black eye that concerned the strangers. I told them I was fine, I was on my way home to my beloved dear husband, waiting on my ride and nothing was terribly wrong.

My ride drove up beside the pole holding me up, a black sedan with a bold shouldered man with a fedora behind the wheel. An image of my beloved dear husband flashed forward and I thought not thoughts of sorrow but thoughts of joy and excitement to see him right away. I got in the car and off we went in a hurry and thankfully I thought, this driver did not speak. For alone is all I wanted to be and think not thoughts that nothing is terribly wrong.

The ride was quick and prompt, only a twenty-minute drive home and then I could fall into the arms of the one that brings me hope and relief. We passed under a bridge that brought bitter memories unasked for. My husband and I parked on that bridge and stared into the sunrise one Autumn morning. One mere hour before we fought and fought with words of disgust of a crime he had not committed but I was jealous and fearful. I regretted those feelings of distrust but now I could not remember why. We sat there in the car as the sun rose over the bridge beaming us with its rays. That day with the two of us there on the bridge overlooking the highway staring into the sun, I hoped that nothing was terribly wrong.

The car parked and I flopped myself out of the car with not a word to the driver. The driver thanked me and drove off. I turned to my hopeful home expecting relief and comfort. My house appeared haunted with the moon reflecting off the newly painted porch my beloved dear husband worked tirelessly to perfect. The wind forced the trees to lean over the house blocking half the view. I thought not of the horrid sight seen in front but of seeing my love after a terrible and strange day. Forcing my legs to move I rushed inside to a sight seen outside just the same. Darkness. Nothing is terribly wrong, I thought.

I flicked a switch and saw the room light up with the stairs in front, with little light leading to the hallway back to a veil of another room of darkness. I stumbled between our picture frames of memories of love and happiness. Never did anyone keep a picture of sorrow and regret and neither did we. My favorite picture is that of us at the Grand Canyon. A stranger took our picture at the top of the Canyon after a full day of hiking and I remember how sweaty and exhausted we were but there we were at the top on the other side after accomplishing a physical feat. We cried and screamed our way up, but my beloved dear husband picked me up both physically and emotionally and helped me climb to the top. That day, the two of us stared into the sun as champions and conquerors and thought, nothing was terribly wrong.

The kitchen light turned on with my flick of the switch. I saw nothing so I ran back to the stairs to stumble my way to the second floor. I called out to my love and wondered where he was. Nothing was my received response. Silence. I barged into each room after room and even into the bathroom, the laundry room, and the closets. But I found nothing there. I dialed out his number again but a deafening tone is all I heard. I doubled back to the rooms to triple check. My heart pounded. Was he hurt? Had he, too, fallen? The bathrooms were cleared. I checked the tubs. Nothing was there, not even a spider lurking with its creepy eight legs and beady black eyes. Something was terribly wrong.

I flipped open my computer to see the last time he logged on his messenger. It said one year to the date. I did not know how that could be. We spoke to each other just the other day online. I checked our messages to each other. Late at night I would message while he was away and I was down and missing him. My eyes blinked over and over to what I was seeing. Only messages to and nothing from my beloved dear husband. How could that be? I laid my head down on our bed and cried tears of sadness and wonder, wonder where my love could be.  I called his mother to ask if she had heard from her son, from my beloved dear husband, and what I heard had devastated my heart to an end I had not foreseen. Something was terribly wrong.

The date my beloved left me was one year to the date and deluded as I was that nothing was terribly wrong, everything was terribly wrong. Dead! Dead! My beloved was dead and upon the memory returning earlier it in a flash and unexpected manner I collapsed to the cement in a town street square. My head hit the pavement and I forgot what I always wished and willed to forget, a thought we all wish to forget, that my beloved dear husband left me one year ago today, Valentine’s day. Everything once was fine, yes it was, and nothing was once never terribly wrong but over and over randomly returning memories force me to remember the truth of the world that something now is always terribly wrong.