So This is the End?
"So...this is it? This is really it?"
He shrugged with his head down in response, unable to look her in the eye. He put his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
"Seriously? You have nothing to say."
Not looking up, he took a deep breath, shook his head, pulled his hands from his pockets, and sat on the couch of her hotel room.
"After everything, all the years of living together, sharing a life, a cat."
He didn't move.
"I have supported you, moved across the world for you. We're literally in another continent and now you decide that it's time to end things?"
No response. His head still stuck staring at the floor.
"Nothing? Jesus, you can't even look at me can you?"
Still no response.
"For fuck's sake how can you just sit there?"
Nothing. He could have been a statue he was sitting so still.
"What the actual...UGH! I have put up with your weird crap--"
He looked up, face scrunched, perturbed.
"Oh, that gets a response?!? You are unbelievable! What am I supposed to do now? Where am I going to live? I don't have a job, I just got here last night! I don't know anyone other than you. Hell, I don't even know the goddamned language! And you are just cutting ties? Like this? After all of these years? What, did you meet someone?"
He looked back down at his hands, folded in his lap. The silence hung as she seethed and he just sat there, eyes down, un-moving. An immobile mute.
After long uncomfortable minutes she stood up from the chair opposite the couch and walked to the window. The room looked out over the bustling city. They were in a room on the 30th floor. There were skyscrapers and office buildings and parks and miles of streets filled with cars and tiny ants of people. Thousands of miles from her home, she saw the trappings of any big metropolitan but also witnessed a place completely foreign and new. The view was spectacular. She was miserable.
"This really is a beautiful country. I was looking forward to exploring it with you. Now I'm just going to always wonder what changed in you after you got here."
He stood, finally looking her in the eye. Holding the gaze for a long, sad moment, he looked down, turned, and walked for the door.
"You could have just told me over the phone. I packed up everything for you. Left my entire life behind and I'm not even here for a day before..."
He stopped. She waited. The air was thick with tension, anxiety, and anger.
"Remember that time we visited Rome? It was in the spring. We explored the city...got lost on more than one occasion."
He stood, barely breathing. In the quiet he nodded, a slight smile forming on the edge of his lips but gone as quick as it appeared.
Finally breaking the silence with the scuffle of his shoes, he made the last few steps to the room's foyer, taking his jacket from the rack.
"So this is the end?"
He stopped at the door, turned his head slightly to the woman whose heart lay in pieces with fire in her eyes, before grabbing the door knob and leaving her one final time.
Author's Note: This story is based on the side story in Nina Paley's film Sita Sings the Blues. I loved the contrast of the telling of the ancient epic with the modern doomed romance. When I originally watched the film, I didn't put two and two together that the modern portion was a retelling of the Sita and Rama romance and just saw it as an additional story that mirrored elements of the Ramayana. In fact, I assumed that it was Nina Paley's actual story. Meaning, I thought that stuff really happened in her life.
I was purposefully sparse in writing this story and thus it was a challenge expanding it for this project. Part of my concept behind the original story was to express all of the female character's emotions through her dialogue. I did not want any of the dialogue in this story followed or proceeded by things like "she said" or "she asked." I also didn't want the male character to say anything, have his internal emotions or thoughts revealed. To some extent it was a writing challenge to myself to try and create a coherent narrative that is a completely one-sided conversation, where no one is given a name, and nearly all emotions are expressed through dialogue or action. I'm not sure if I was successful in this endeavor or not, but it was an interesting exercise.
Bibliography: Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley