It’s been 6 months since I lost my wife, Elizabeth. It was cancer, an aggressive one, at that. Even knowing that her death was imminent, I was not prepared. It was almost as if she took her last breath, left this world, and took my soul with her. My physical body was still here on Earth, but I was a shell of a man. A hollow, fragile, husk.
Towards the end, I had taken time off of work to be with her. After she passed, I left my job completely. I just didn’t have it in me to do, well, anything, honestly. Elizabeth had left quite a bit of money to me when she died, so I took full advantage of not needing to work.
The first few weeks were spent with my ass glued to my recliner, the one thing that seemed to offer even a modicum of familiarity and comfort in my time of pain. Before she died, Elizabeth would sit in her own armchair next to my recliner, crocheting different things, rolling her eyes as I listened to the bright-eyed, bleach blonde reporter deliver awful news with a surprisingly perky inflection. Elizabeth couldn’t stand that reporter, and especially despised her always-happy tone. I missed watching the news with her. Everything felt so empty now without my Elizabeth.
Every morning I would get out of bed, exhausted and worn-down after yet another sleepless night. I would shuffle down the hallway, from the bedroom I once shared with my love, and go straight to the recliner. There I would sit, staring past the TV and out the window, hazily watching the world pass me by. The never-ending 24/7 news station going on again about whatever awful shit was happening around the world - war, famine, natural disasters, hate-crimes, nuclear threats… Not that I cared or paid attention to any of it anymore - it didn’t matter to me. The whole world could have exploded right in front of me, and I wouldn’t have flinched.
Days passed, and then weeks. Months of repeated trips from the bedroom to the recliner had left a sad, dingy, dirty path in the hallway carpet. Household plants withered and died. Mail piled up under the slot in the front door. Dust collected on the windowsills. My immediate surroundings began to look exactly how I felt - neglected and alone.
One morning I shuffled into the living room, ready to start the day by collapsing into the recliner and watching the news as the world burned, but something was different. The base of the recliner, normally a uniform, soft gray leather, appeared to have dark marks around where my legs would rest against it. The leather where my legs touched the chair was unaffected, but instead it was if I was leaving behind a dirty outline of my legs. I knew I had been neglecting my hygiene, but was I really so dirty that it was rubbing off onto the leather? Feeling ashamed at my filth, I immediately showered, scrubbing my skin until I thought it would bleed. “What would Elizabeth think if she saw me like this?” I wondered. Inside my chest, my heart ached at the thought of her being disappointed in me.
After showering, I attempted to clean the recliner. I couldn’t have that dirty outline haunting me every time I walked into the room, constantly reminding me that Elizabeth would be so disappointed. I grabbed the cleaning caddy and got to work, gently scrubbing at the leather, not wanting to damage it further. I scrubbed for what felt like hours, trying various scrubbing pressures, different cleaning products - all to no avail. That damn outline would not go away. My forearms burned, my back and knees ached, and I eventually decided to give up for the day. I shuffled back to my bedroom, trudging along the familiar faded path in the hallway carpet. As I crawled into bed, I hoped that tomorrow would be different.
For those who are lucky enough to not know, depression is a monster. It convinces your brain that you are worthless, boring, and unimportant. It takes your good intentions and destroys them. While I had hoped that the following day would be different, my depression stepped in and shut that down. I awoke to the familiar feeling of emptiness, and quickly decided that today would be like all the others - spent in that damn recliner.
Walking into the living room that morning, I saw that the dirty outline had… changed? It seemed larger, as if it were covering more of the chair than before. The outline was now extending upwards towards the seat of the recliner. My depression monster reveled in this discovery, taunting my mind and mocking me for attempting to clean it the day before.
Today would not be a better day, and neither would tomorrow. Embarrassed by the ever-growing outline, I covered the chair with a blanket before sitting. Out of sight, out of mind, right? I sank into my recliner, flipped on the news, and let the darkness of my depression envelop my mind as I listened to the bleach blonde reporter happily go on about bombs being dropped and countless innocent people being killed. Same day, different shit. Elizabeth would hate it.
The following morning, I trudged into the living room, flipped the news on, and decided to check the state of the recliner before sitting. “Maybe it disappeared overnight…” I thought naively. I removed the blanket covering my “shame stain” and gasped, dropping the blanket to the floor. The outline now extended from the base, to the very top of the chair. It was clearer than ever that this dirty stain was indeed from me. I couldn’t help but sink into the chair one final time, looking down to see how the outline fit my body perfectly.
I expected this growing, darkening, dirty outline of my body to disgust or shame me, but the guilty feelings never came. Instead, for the first time since Elizabeth’s passing, I felt at ease. The recliner fit my body like a glove, providing a deep sense of comfort that I had been longing for since Elizabeth died. It was as if a weight was being lifted off of my entire body, allowing me to finally feel comfort. My eyes suddenly felt heavy as I felt sleep crawling closer, the bleach blonde news reporter’s voice barely registering as I drifted off to my deepest sleep yet.
“… not a drill. We repeat - a ballistic missile has been fired at the United States by…”
“…please seek shelter immediately. Do not leave your homes in search of others. Nuclear fallout is expected to last for…”
“…God be with you.”
A bright flash went off in the distance, illuminating everything in its vicinity. My eyes fluttered open as the windows exploded, showering me in glass. Screams seemed to be coming from all directions, but quickly faded into nothing. The world outside my window faded to black, a deafening silence filling the space around me.
My heart rate slowed, my breaths becoming shallow and farther apart. I felt no fear, no panic, no remorse - only comfort. I had found a seat for the end of the world, and it actually felt pretty damn good.