Bread, Milk, and Eggs

A short fiction based on the emotions of a non-fictional event.

She sent me out the door. Said something that made me laugh although I can't remember what it was. In my hand I held her list;

Bread, milk and eggs.

There's nothing remarkable about getting into your car and driving to the store. There's nothing noteworthy about carrying a red plastic shopping basket and finding everything on the list;

Bread, milk and eggs.

Of course I'd swear now that the cashier had a tear in her eye as I pulled a wad of one dollar bills out of my pocket and paid. But how would the cashier have known? I just chalk it up to my own mind's revisionist history.

Something raw and heavy in the pit of my stomach weighed me down as I drove home. That feeling when something in your tiny little corner of the world has gone terribly wrong but you don't know yet what exactly it is. I didn't even notice that the house was dark until I walked through the gaping front door. My mind raced and reeled making up a million reasons why the front door would be wide open and all of the lights inside would be off when she was home.

Deep down I already knew.

In the shadows of the dining room I saw the ghostly white of a small notepad against the black of the mahogany table. Relunctly I turned on the pale refracted light of the small chandelier, set my teeth and began to read.

"I'm sorry but I can't."

That was all it said.

No salutation. No explanation. No excerpt of poetry. No song verse to make things more dramatic and less clear.

None of those things.

But I understood perfectly well.

She was gone and all she left me was this note with the indentations of the last note carved into it forever. Bread, milk and eggs.

Sabin Brabb fronts the smash Oregon based band ItchyItchy. You can contact him at sbrabb@comcast.net. He drinks Oban, and his motto is en ma fin gît ma commencement... (in my end is my beginning). Stay tuned for more Sabin.