002.

002.

When they returned to their flat that evening, after spending the day ambling through town silently because Eloise was in a mood, there was a note on the door. 

It read:

I KNOCKED BUT NO ONE ANSWERED

      -l.t.

Eloise immediately snatched the note up and scrutinized it for thirty seconds before handing it over and asking, Well, what does it mean?

Marcus didn't respond, fixated on the small slip of paper. Just then the humidity of the tiny hall in which they stood overwhelmed the girl and she began swaying a little at the knees. 

What could it mean Marc?

Glancing at his wife he felt a profound sadness because he couldn't answer her question. She had stopped asking him things when she realized there was nothing he could say to make her happy. 

Communication, save for  the necessary and insignificant, was virtually non-existent now. 

When they had first met, in the spring of their second year at university, Eloise would spend the night lying with her head on Marcus' lap and just talk for ages. Within the first month, he thought he knew everything about her. 

Don't ever make me jealous, she had told him.

I go mad. I can't take it. My heart starts rattling and rattling and all my ribs splinter and break apart. I bust open from the inside.

She had said it all with a smile, but something in the way her lips were stuck with him. 

Her lips were like that now, so he crumpled the note and tossed it down the stairwell.

I don't know what the hell it means, he said.  Doesn't matter, they probably stuck it on the wrong door anyway. Let's go inside. 

At dinner Marcus tried to stimulate conversation, but was dejected by her irresponsiveness three times before resorting to relocating himself and his dinner plate onto the couch. He proceeded to turn on the news and began increasing the volume an increment for every second Eloise refused to speak. The television was screaming before Marcus even realized she had gone. 

F**k, he said, inaudibly as a sigh. 

He got a beer out of the fridge and sat in Eloise's empty chair staring at the untouched food. He sat there until six more beers had gone and the news was on it's third cycle. 

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[John]

I suggest reading Death of a Salesman if you ever lack inspiration.