She approached the unfamiliar door and nervously took the key from her pocket. With a gruff breath, she unlocked the door, paused, then opened it. To her horror she saw the lifeless body of her husband hurled on the sofa facing her. Her feet dipped into the wood floor, and with a hushed gasp she covered her slope with both of her hands. The coldness of her palms soothed her as warm tears streamed down her cheeks, staining the ground. She rejected the reality confronting her, this was the man she had married ten years ago. This is the image he abandons her with.

With hesitant steps, she approached the corpse. Her arms were crossed, fingers pinching her flesh in a grim attempt to wake herself. She slumped next to the body and touched the yellow tinted skin. Her head felt so hefty that she plumped it on his shoulder and whimpered. Her shrieks echoed in the deserted apartment, she grasped her husband’s button up shirt, yanking him from side to side.

Between her sobs, she whispered, “why did you have to meet her? Why couldn’t have you just talked to me?” she lectured him, waiting for his ghost to argue back once more.

Her words seemed to hover in the distance between their faces, bouncing back to her. As the reality of her husband’s mortality sunk deep into the pit of her stomach, she examined her surroundings. The apartment felt smaller than the first time they had visited, and there was a lingering scent of a woman’s perfume. The curtains hung loosely behind the sofa which harboured the body, shut, isolating it from the world.

Her life wasn’t always so chaotic and thrill; in fact, she had a traditional upbringing and ended up achieving her dream of becoming a housewife. She relished in the tedious routine and dull nights which came along with her structured marriage. Not once did she wish for a varied path as this was her safe place. She dominated everything, from the way the flowers on the kitchen counter were arranged to the minute her husband arrived home. This was flawless.