Until Next Time

In the pitch black room he sits, staring at something that doesn’t exist and focusing all of his attention upon something his hands can never grasp.  The last words she spoke to him echo around the room but have no origin.

“Until next time.”

“Until next time” is a phrase that is pregnant with promise, however “until next time” held 
no promise at all.   He sits in the room surrounded by black, hearing those words “until next time” over and over as if someone is saying it in his ear, yet no one is speaking.  His hands are bound with chains that those words created.  He tries to stand but can’t, because the promise of “until next time” weighs him down.  He tried to cry, but the words wouldn’t allow a single tear to fall.  He tried to call out for help, but the words drowned out his protests.  He hung his head with “until next time” echoing in his mind.  He was left sitting in the room wondering when he would be set free, when is this “next time”?  He exhaled and came to a realization and choked out the words “there isn’t one.  There is no next time.”

 A warmth began to form on his face and he noticed he was crying.  The tears fell landing on and dissolving the chains that held his wrists. He heard a faint whisper of the words “until next time” and he groaned again in reply though this time angrily, “there is no next time”. He could feel the words losing their hold on him. He could feel his voice and the ability to stand returning to him, the weight slowly lifting off of his shoulders. A small light began to shine in front of him, his eyes focused sharply on it and the harder he focused the bigger the light became.

Looking around him as the light began to illuminate the room he could see the walls were made of pictures.  Every picture was a  memory of times they spent together, each and every one a precious moment in their relationship and he began to cry even harder as the light started to fade those pictures  into a pure white wall.  On one of those pictures he saw the words written in her handwriting “Until next time”.  He remembered every moment that each picture portrayed but his eyes began to well up with tears and blur his vision to the point that all he could see was the light continuing to grow while erasing them.

Wiping the tears from his eyes he looked up and could see there was only one picture that remained now.  It was the first picture they ever took together and it too had faded.  All that was left was her face smiling back at him and he could swear he saw her mouthing the words “until next time”.  He felt his head begin to get heavy, he felt the weight returning and he shook his head and gritted his teeth.  His mouth trembled and his voice wavered as he looked back up, shook his head, stared at the picture of their first date into the face of the woman he loved and said "There is no next time. This is goodbye.”