Song: “Raining in Baltimore” by Counting Crow from August and Everything After

A bedroom at dusk. It is dim but there is still enough natural light to see clearly without turning on a lamp. PAOLO sits on the floor, back against a bed that pressed up against a wall. At his feet is a box about the size of a shoebox. In it and around it are various pieces of paper and other small items. Very personal treasures.

PAOLO (looking off to a corner of the room)

It took three days for my jacket to stop smelling like her. She had worn it when we rang from the hall to the car and then on the drive home. And for those three days it smelled on her and her perfume and fresh clean rain. And it was the best thing I had ever smelled. On day four it was gone but I didn’t worry. She and I were going to be together, there would be plenty other jackets and shirts and blankets and towels that would smell like her.

I was so dumb.

He straightens his leg and it makes contact with what appears to be a small doll, sending it skittering across the floor.

PAOLO (grumbling)

Dammit.

PAOLO spends a moment staring after it, debating to get up again. He decides not to bother.

PAOLO

This box…I can still smell her in it. It’s light. So light you might miss it. But I don’t. It’s enough to click into the sense memory I have up here. It trips it and it’s like she’s here. All around me. Surrounding me, again.

It is, well, it is a low tech form of torture honestly. I open this box and look through these artifacts and it’s like she’s here again. But she’s not. But she is.

He shakes his head, grimacing at himself.

PAOLO

I am aware of how much nonsense that sounds like. Words…sometimes we just don’t have the proper way to capture something. So we sound like nonsense. This is a thing I tell myself anyway.

He pulls a picture out of the box, turning it over to look at the writing on the back, then returns to the photo itself.

PAOLO

It’s strange what slips through the cracks. Like I know her eyes are blue. I know that. And I look at pictures, this picture, and confirm it. But I don’t remember them. I know how to describe them but I can’t see them. Not really. I can see them in pictures but I can’t…I can’t seem to hold it in my head.

I remember how she laughed but I can’t remember what it was like to kiss her. I can remember what it felt to fall asleep on the couch with her and wake up disoriented but comfortable and warm but I can’t recall if that was my house or her’s.

I remember her. And I don’t remember her. Every day I lose her a little bit more.

But then there are some days I will hear a song or catch the smell of something on the air and I can trick myself into thinking I’ll be meeting her again that night or we’ve got plans that weekend. Hell sometimes I will see someone in a coat that looks like something we would wear and I need to dig in and not chase after them. Because my brain can make me think it is her walking away. That she’s right there again.

She’d be so mad at me for this. For doing this. For being this way. She’d remind me how long it is has been. She’d point out what I’ve done since. The people I’ve met, the women I have loved or tried to love or just…god…no other way to say it…the women I’ve used, hoping against hope that somehow it might become more than that.

And she’d be right. But I’d also want to tell her she should try it. She should try living with this ghost that clings to you every moment but then disappears the moment you reach for it. This specter that can materialize from a bowl of cereal or a single sound one day and be utterly invisible for a month after. An apparition that comes on so strong it makes your teeth rattle only to cease a moment later, making your whole body vibrate from the sudden emptiness.

He takes another item from the box. A small ball. He bounces it a few times, softly. Then hard, sending it bouncing haywire through the room.

PAOLO (in a growl, then softening)

“You try it!” I’d say. And she’d smile. That “I understand you’re mad, but” smile she’d do. She’d tell me she’d do anything to take it away from me if she could. And my heart would break all over again.

All this time and that’s what is hardest for me. There’s no one to blame. No one to be mad at. There’s no criminals, no weapons. Just…random chance. I never ever believed in a God that granted wishes or picked and chose winners and losers so I can’t even be mad at Him. She’s not here anymore because she’s not. It’s a perfect loop, utterly logical and horribly frustrating.

It’s dumb but if I could just be mad. Just be enraged…

Angry instead of lost and confused and so sad that I can feel it in my blood. If I could just do that, maybe I could scream or fight or hurt it out of me.

But I can’t. Because there’s no one to blame. Not even myself.

Not. Even. Myself.

“Get up,” she’d say, “Get up and get out of here.”

She’d be right. But if I do…that’ll be it. She’ll really be gone. For good.

And I’m just not strong enough for that.