Invincble

[sensen]

I used words from one of my current favourite songs "Need you now" by Lady Antebellum for the piece below. I hope you'll like it :)

INVINCIBLE

It’s a quarter after one.

I can’t recall how much I’ve had to drink. Nor do I care. Dragging me kicking and screaming out of the club, May knocked me on my head and told me how it was the last time she’d take me out dancing and drinking. I laughed and asked if she’d like to come back to my home and drink some more. “Tell you what I’ll do. When we’re home I’m going to tape your sorry arse to your bed and shove sleeping pills down your throat. You need to get some freaking sleep!”

I got out of bed the minute she left. For the life of me, I can’t find a goddamn thing to drink. May probably raided my cupboard and took them all away. *****! Always tries to do what’s good for me.

Looking around the lounge as if I have never been here before, I stand still for a couple of minutes or so before walking to the bookshelf and grab a brown paper bag off it. Emptying its content on the floor, I slump into the couch. Pictures scattered all around the floor, perfect memories start flooding in. Now is not exactly the best time to do this. I know. My brain tells me to put the photos away. Go to bed. Get some sleep.

Instead, I’m reaching for the phone. I’ve given in. I’ve lost all control. I’m all alone and I can’t fight it anymore.

“Hello, it’s me”, my voice trembles. Tears are coming like a brutal army invading my soul. Struggling to hold them back, I continue, “I’m a little drunk and I know I said I wouldn’t call but… I need you now! I don’t know how I can do anything without you. Please come home! I’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all. Baby, please come home! I just need you now!”

No reply on the other end.

“I wonder if I ever cross your mind.” I whisper hopelessly. “For me, it happens all the time.”

I hang up and lie down on the couch. God knows how much I want another shot of whiskey right now. I have now stopped staring at the photos. Instead, I’m looking at the door. I can’t stop staring at it. I’m wishing he’d come sweeping in the way he did before. I’m seeing all sorts of things that we did together once. I’m seeing his smile. I’m seeing his eyes. I’m seeing us, facing each other and all curled up on the floor in front of the warm fireplace. He’s stroking my hair as I snuggle my face into his chest and breathe in his scent – a sort of scent that reminds me of the Earth.

Yet there is one thing that I still refuse to see. Everything within me screams and fights it and tells me that it’s not real, that all this is just a bad dream and tomorrow, when I open my eyes, there he will be, flesh and blood, smiling at me as he plants a kiss on my sleepy face. Everything in me convinces me that he will be here, right next to me, and we will grow old and grey and travel the world. Everything in me screams at me for the thought of giving up, of believing that he is not here anymore.

I want to blame someone, anyone. I want to blame the world. I want to blame the ground I stand on.

But I know none of it will bring him back.

Because no matter how much I want to fight, the truth is death is invincible.

I can choose to let the darkness it brings consume my every step on the road ahead.

Or I can choose not to be dragged by but rather walk with memories of him on a brand new road.

I can choose to let love help me conquer my own demons and let the best of me shine through these dark hours.

Because, ironically, like death, love is invincible.

[hillwalker]

I'm not familiar with this particular song - but I'm assuming some of the lines close to the end (where they were written down almost as verse) are taken from it. If so, and the song has some particular significance for the narrator, that's probably ok. Otherwise they stand out as being quite separate from the story and don't add very much to the story. I'm certain you can come up with a more meaningful conclusion using your own words.

The build-up was intriguing - which is why I felt you leapt too quickly from needing sleep to jumping out of bed. It almost left me wondering why you bothered with the preceding paragraph if you can dismiss thatbit of plot so casually.

I'm not saying it's not badly written - in fact it has a good deal of merit. It's the pace of the piece that needs some work on. There's some fleshing out that could be done to add substance to the main character as the story unfolds - and there's some trimming you could do at the end. That meandering self-analysis (i.e. the verse-like bits) is definitely a weak point on which to end what could be a more interesting investigation of loss and coping with rejection.

H

[AuntShecky]

deleted.

Sorry, a "mis-click"

[sensen]

Thank you, hillwalker, for pointing out what needs more work on :)