Sorry, My Love

"I am sorry, my love... you finish the novel."

I do not write because I have something to say, but rather because writing is the only tether keeping me bound to this life. Had I ever truly listened to my inner voice, I would have taken my own life long ago.

After my family scattered across the globe, each stranded on a different continent, in a different city, living lives that bore no resemblance to one another, nothing remained for me but my solitude. Then, she arrived... the only woman I have ever truly loved. She was not merely my wife, she was the very blood coursing through my veins, and the mirror in which I saw my true self. She grew with me, taking shape within my soul, so much so that whenever I stood before a mirror, I felt her features had imprinted themselves upon my own face, and that I carried a piece of her in my gaze, in my silence, and in my brokenness.

And then, she died.

She died without any clear reason, sleeping beside me in absolute serenity, as if she hadn't died at all, but merely decided to fall silent forever. I called out to her repeatedly, shaking her shoulder gently at first, then with mounting panic, but she did not answer. Even now, I cannot fathom how it happened while I was sleeping right next to her. How did death slip between us without me feeling its presence? And how did I not wake up at the exact moment I should have? Was that not my role? Was that not my sworn duty to her, to keep her safe?

Since that night, I have been judging myself without mercy. Fleeing from every corner of the house that echoed with her memory, I moved all the shabby details of my life and whatever remained of my breath into my isolated study. I locked its door behind me, keeping my cat, Cairo, with me to comfort my loneliness. I had no need to ever step outside, for the room was equipped with a small bathroom and enough space for my total seclusion from that house, which had become desolate and lethal without her.

I laid my pen to rest in mourning for her. Two whole days passed while I yearned to eulogize her, trying repeatedly to write words worthy of the sheer magnitude of her loss, but all thoughts fled from me like terrified birds. My pen wept tears, not ink, and every sentence I began twisted into a chokehold, every line stumbling at her name, or at the void she had left behind. Two whole days of writing nothing, sitting at my desk, surrounded by white papers wrapping around me like tiny shrouds, until I finally decided not to write an elegy, but to finish the novel she loved and constantly urged me to complete. I told myself that perhaps my words in her favorite story would reach her wherever she was.

On that night, I sat at my desk. Cairo was asleep beneath my feet as usual, a small ball of fur and warmth, while the clock on the wall chewed the seconds with a deliberate sluggishness.

I rested my fingers on the keyboard, and after a long hesitation, I wrote:

And the moment I finished the final period, the sound came to me.

It was not a faint knock born from the novel's inspiration. It was the sound of a real key turning in the lock of the main apartment door outside!

My hands froze over the keys. The click of the latch echoed, followed by the creak of the door slowly opening, then the thud of heavy footsteps, and the sound of suitcase wheels dragging heavily across the living room floor.

Cairo lifted her head from beneath my feet, her ears perked up, and she did not jump in fright, rather she dashed out of the room toward the hall, rubbing her body against whoever had entered and letting out a soft meow akin to a desperate whimper.

I rose from my seat slowly. My heart was pounding violently, nearly shattering my ribs. I walked toward the ajar study door with cautious steps, and stopped at the threshold, hiding in the gloom.

And there... she was.

I stood rooted to the spot. The air was cut off from my lungs. She was leaving her large suitcase by the door, taking off her coat with excruciating slowness. It was her... in flesh and blood! She was no transparent phantom, but an undeniable reality breathing in the middle of my living room. A suitcase? Where had she returned from? I must be dreaming. Or had my mind splintered after two days of isolation? How does one return from death burdened with luggage?

I wanted to rush toward her, to hold her until our ribs cracked, to scream her name. But a primal fear reined me in. If I suddenly appeared before her two days after her death, her exhausted heart would stop from the shock. This was impossible, the dead do not return like this carrying suitcases! I had to slow down and comprehend what was happening.

But... my God, what had happened to her?

When she turned around and the lamp's light fell upon her face, my heart plummeted. She was not the woman I knew two days ago. Her face, which used to radiate with life, looked horrifyingly weary, pale, and extinguished. Her eyes were sunken, surrounded by deep dark circles, and there was a slight slump in her shoulders as if she carried a mountain of grief upon them. She was never like this before! What had happened to make her age and wither so much in a mere forty-eight hours?

She stepped feebly toward the center of the hall. Cairo circled her feet, and she bent down slowly to pat her head with a faded smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Then... her phone rang. She pulled it from her coat pocket with a trembling hand. She answered in a hushed, hoarse voice, as if her throat were torn from endless weeping:

She fell silent to listen to her friend, then closed her eyes, a hot tear sliding down her pale cheek, and continued in a tone ripped apart by sorrow:

Her words struck me like a thunderbolt, paralyzing me completely.

And who was she talking about while her friend consoled her? I am right here! I am standing merely steps away from her. Why is she speaking of me in the third person? And why is she weeping over a month-long separation when I hadn't been further than a single wall away?

The room spun around me. I took a step out of the shadows, extending my hand toward her:

I whispered in a voice I willed to shake the very walls. But she didn't turn. She didn't even blink. She walked right through the space between us to place her phone on the table, no... I swear her shoulder passed right through my chest without her feeling my presence!

I stumbled back in sheer panic. I looked at my hands, they were translucent. I looked at her, she was now standing before the main wall of the living room. The wall where her portrait had always hung centrally, the one I had placed in mourning after she died.

But the picture gracing the center of the room was not hers.

I approached with a lethal slowness, dragging my feet. I looked at the frame...

Dear God... how could this be?!
The picture was mine. The black ribbon was for me. The funeral held a month ago was mine!

The walls of my delusion collapsed, and the veil of time tore away like a paper curtain. The fateful night... she was not the one who fell silent forever. I was the one who woke up clutching my chest, choking in silence, trying to wake her, but death was faster. I was the one who died that night! She was the one who woke up terrified in the morning, the one who shook my shoulder gently at first, then screamed in panic when I didn't respond. She was the one who collapsed and was forced to travel to her family for a whole month to process the tragedy of my sudden departure, only to return today dragging her suitcase filled with grief.

And I? I was the phantom trapped in the study. The soul for whom time had frozen at the moment of death, mistaking a month for two days, and mistaking isolation for mourning, when in truth I was nothing more than the remnants of a spirit refusing to pass on.

She sat on the sofa, pulled out our photo album, and opened it to a picture of us together. A tear fell from her onto the paper. She clutched the album to her chest fiercely, as if trying to force it between her ribs, and burst into tears. Muffled, soul-rending sobs.

I sat on the floor beside her. I tried to touch the strands of her hair, but my hand passed right through them like a mirage. I tried to wipe away her tear, but my fingers slipped through thin, cold air. I was powerless. That absolute powerlessness that makes you wish for death all over again just to be rid of its agony.

The only one who could see me amidst all this was Cairo. The cat approached me, looking directly into my eyes with her gleaming gaze.

And in that moment, I heard the voice.

It was not a human voice. It was the Caller. His voice was calm, profound, emanating from everywhere at once, slipping into my soul like a warm breeze:

I looked around. I felt the weight of existence lifting. The room began to lose its colors and fade away, and a door of warm light opened slowly at the end of the hallway.

I knew my borrowed time was up. That I had exhausted my visual and temporal illusions because my soul refused to accept the idea of leaving her alone to face this cruel world.

And before taking my first step out, I looked back one last time.
I looked at her.

She was still sitting, tears streaming down her exhausted cheeks, clutching our photo album tightly.

I whispered to her in a voice she would never hear in this world, hoping the warmth would somehow reach her heart.