Silence. It was so complete that Edward at first could not tell what had roused him. Not the alarm clock, not the clatter from the kitchen, not the hiss of water in the bath. Nothing but the low hum of the refrigerator behind the wall and the distant rumble of London outside the window.
He lay there, listening to the quiet. Only yesterday the house had been alive: the floorboards creaking beneath Gwens brisk steps, the rustle of pages in the book she read in the armchair, even the irritating scrape of a cats claws on the settee. Now the cat had gone with her, and the sofa sat empty and foreign.
His first impulse was to seize the telephone and type a frantic message to anyone: Meet me at the pub, urgently! and then, over a glass of whisky, unload his pain, bitterness and rage to his mates. He imagined describing her in vivid detail Yet he forbade himself even to think of it. A lower, more base urge whispered of finding anyone, anyone at all, just to fill the yawning void beside him for a night. A simple route to selfdestruction, familiar and tempting.
Instead, Edward rose, shuffled into the kitchen and turned the kettle on. While it boiled, his eyes fell on the hall shelf where Gwens favourite woollen shawl still lay. A hatchet in the head, he recalled a article he had read a week earlier, at the very height of his despair.
So, lad, its time to pull the hatchet out, he muttered to himself.
He began with the small things. He gathered all her belongings she had left behind: the shawl, the forgotten novel, a dried ink bottle, her mug adorned with kittens. He packed them gently into a cardboard box, not tossing them as spite would have urged, but wrapping them with care and taking them down to the cellar. He promised himself he would return them later, without drama or accusation. He then laundered the bed linen, airing out the scent of her perfume. He deleted their shared photographs from his phone and emptied the Recycle Bin. Each act felt like stripping away a grimy bandage from a woundpainful, yet necessary.
Time, too, pressed down on him like a heavy weight. Hours that had once been spent on dinner dates, cinema outings, idle but sweet conversations now lay empty. He needed to fill them, not with drink or selfpity, but with himself.
He bought a membership at the local gym. The first sessions were hell. He pushed himself to the brink, pouring his anger, disappointment and hurt into the machines. Drops of sweat on the rubber floor looked like tears. Yet week by week his body grew stronger and his mind steadier.
He enrolled in a beginners Italian class, a dream they had always postponed. Now he attended alone. Complex grammar displaced the intrusive thoughts that had haunted him. He even travelled to Brighton, the seaside town Gwen had never wanted to visit. Sitting on the pier at sunset, he felt for the first time in months a light, gentle melancholy and, faintly, a glimpse of freedom.
There were darker days. At night memories would surface: Gwens laugh as she threw her head back, or a trivial argument theyd once had. He did not chase them away. He simply lay and let the pain ebb and flow, as the article had advised, like waves rolling in and receding. Occasionally he would drive out of town, climb a barren hill and shout until his voice hoarse, until the desired silence settled over him.
One afternoon, while sorting old papers, he found their wedding photograph. He braced for a surge of sorrow or rage, but instead he stared at the two smiling strangers and thought, Yes, that was real. It was beautiful. And now it is over.
No bitterness lingered, no urge to turn back. Only a soft nostalgia and the understanding that that chapter of his life had closed.
That evening he met his friends. They laughed, shared news, made plans. Edward realised he hadnt thought of Gwen all night. He was simply present, whole, though a scar still marked his soul, now scarred over.
He glanced at his reflection in the café window: upright, calm, eyes clear. He hadnt seen himself like that in many yearsperhaps never again.
The hatchet was out, the wound healed. He was ready to walk onward, unburdened, his life the one he had always imaginedjust beginning.
Then a sharp, foul smell struck his nose. Edward had no time to grasp what was happening. The room swam, as if emerging from mist. He lay on the sofa, halfclothed, surrounded by crumbs and stains of unknown origin.
He tried to sit; the world tilted. His head throbbed. Ice crept over his skin.
It was not the bright, sunfilled home of his dream. It was a squalid flat. Empty beer and vodka bottles littered the floor like fallen soldiers. An ashtray on the table smoldered with a heap of cigarette butts. Dirty clothes were strewn everywhere, and the television flickered a static nighttime show.
He forced himself to the bathroom, clutching at the tiles. The harsh fluorescent light cut into his eyes. In the mirror he saw a stranger: an unshaven man with a puffy, crumpled face, eyes redrimmed, full of shame and emptiness. It was himEdward.
All the clarity, the strength, the sense of wholeness he had felt in the dream vanished, leaving only a bitter, nauseating hangover and a deeper, soullevel hangover.
It had all been a dream. The path of discarded things, the gym, the Italian lessons, the pier sunseteach a clever trick of his mind to flee an unbearable reality. A flight that seemed to last an eternity but, in truth, was just one night.
He touched his face in the mirror. His skin was oily, the stubble prickled his fingertips. This was his present: not the successful, toned gentleman, but a downtrodden figure trying to drown his pain in cheap spirits and selfdeception.
Silence in the flat struck again, but now it was the silence of a deadend, deafening and unyielding. The most terrifying sound within that hush was the relentless ticking of the clock, mercilessly counting the time he wasted.
The dream had not healed him. It had held a mirror up to his true self, and the reflection was so repellent that he wanted to shut his eyes and run. Yet there was nowhere to run.
Edward stood, staring at his own broken image, shocked by the man in the grimy Tshirt, the chaos surrounding him. A foul taste lingered in his mouth, and inside his chest a burnt emptiness. The dream had been vivid, the waking world brutally harsh.
He grabbed the nearest empty bottle from the floor and hurled it into the dustbin; it smashed with a clang. He did the same with the second, then the third. He did not scream, did not weep. With a stonecold face he began a war against the rubbish he had let overrun his life.
He collected every piece of trash, lugged out sacks of bottles and shards, flung open the window to let cold, fresh air chase away the stale smell of cheap gin. He brewed a strong cup of tea, his hands trembling.
Returning to the mirror, his gaze was still weary, but deep within those clouded eyes a faint spark glimmereda glint, not of hope but of bitter, white fury aimed at himself.
He reached for his phone, scrolled through contacts and found the number of his old schoolmate, a trainee counsellor who had offered help a month earlier. He had saved the number but never called. Now he dialled.
Tom? his voice cracked like an old hinge. I need your help.
He put the receiver down, inhaled deeply. The path revealed in the dream was a mirage, but it pointed somewhere. Edward understood that to become the clean, strong person hed glimpsed, he would have to walk through this hellnot in sleep, but in waking life.
His first step was not to the gym nor to the language class. It was to the shower. To wash away yesterdays grime, to scrub off the unshaven, crumpled man. And to begin, anew, from the very start. Tomorrow.
