The Key…

I recently attended a local writer’s event and we participated in a writing prompt called The Mystery Box. You’re to pull an item from the box and you write about it for 10 minutes. You are supposed to imagine that this object is one of the most important things in the world to you. Mine was a regular key with a plain circular key holder attached.

The Key

This key is the most important thing to me. It’s been held in her hands.

Hands with long elegant fingers. Gentle hands.

It was my offering of me, to her.

Here is my world.

Here is my life.

You, my love, are offered sanctuary here.

To my life. To my home. To my existence.

And I gave her this key with my heart and she clasped it in her hand and twisted it around her own key ring.

A blending of our lives.

My life is synchronized with your life.

We shall share our lives now.

With this key I thee wed you to me.

She smiled and kissed me on day one of the key.

And then…

“We must share calendars now,” I said.

“We must merge our bills now,” I said.

“What kind of coffee creamer should I buy for you?” I asked.

And every day her answers got shorter.

And her gaze no longer lingered on me.

Something was clearly wrong on day 8 of the key.

She said she had to go.

Not in a temporary way.

In a permanent way.

“I must go home,” she said, not looking at me.

And she didn’t mean my home. She didn’t mean our home.

My heart was being torn from its cavity in my chest. Red and gelatinous and beating in a frenzy.

“Please do not leave me,” I pleaded, wanting to make the world right.

Willing to chop parts of myself off to fit through the door of her.

But she shook her head

“I love you, but this won’t work,” she said.

She slid the key from her key ring

And she gave it back to me.

On day 10 of the key.