By Adena Graham
Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. That arc of grief everyone said he’d experience. Except he never did. Harris was absent from the start.
He grew into the chair where she used to sit, flesh melding with fabric. On the rare occasions he moved, to answer his body’s traitorous call of nature, he would slowly unfurl—bones shrieking in protest.
Eventually, he stopped moving from the chair altogether. The clock sighed and ceased; its final ‘tock’ an echo of what might have been.
They found him at 3:37 p.m. on a Tuesday. It was the second time Harris had died that month.
So sad, but this is lovely writing.
“The clock sighed and stopped; its final ‘tock’ an echo of what might have been.” Wow. Definitely one of those lines I wish I had written! Great job!
Powerful, quite shocking second paragraph. Brought Hitchcock’s “Psycho” to mind – a battle being waged, in Her chair, for independent identity. But, even from the grave, She rules both man and time.