Reflex

Reflex- 275
Stephen N. Dethrage

Lover of my recent past,

I lost my job today. I was not treated unfairly, so don't fret. This morning was my fifth day in a row to come in late, and I'm merely surprised this didn't come earlier in the week. The alarm clock sounded on time, as it has every day I've been tardy, but I slapped the snooze button, and rested for another half hour. To call this ritual a habit does it a serious injustice. It's more than that. Reflex is really the only suitable word to describe it. I can control it no more than I can control the direction of the wind. My right hand, as it reaches to fumble over the buttons every morning, has lagged behind my mind, and is yet to grasp that you aren't there any longer to rise out of bed and shower after the alarm's first ring. Four years of doing the same thing every time that incessant beeping dragged me out of the stupor of sleep can probably never be reversed.

It isn't that I haven't accepted that you're gone, I promise. I know you're with a better man when you wake each morning, and that he'll do a better job of treating you like the goddess you are, but that doesn't change anything.

Don't misunderstand, this is not a plea for you to come back to me and make everything normal once more. It's just a notification. An update.

It's very hard without you.

I wish you'd tell me that it's hard for you, too, so I didn't feel so pathetic.

At any rate, I love you.

Expect another letter tomorrow.