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The cold floor startled Todd as he climbed out of Sylvie’s bed late in the night. Despite his exhaustion, his body finally giving in to sleep, Todd was still awakened as he was every night, by the same dream, the same thought.

Downstairs, the rooms were still colder. Todd buttoned his shirt as he shuffled methodically to the basement to start a fire, pausing by the kitchen to see a light blinking. 3:58. He had managed nearly four straight hours of sleep, and felt a vague sickness as the strangeness of rest swept over him. Coffee would end the night, and he could leave then within the hour.

Todd opened the back door, bracing himself. Cool, but not even close to the snowy weeks before. Spring-like. The chattering birds seemed to assure him. The pipes would not freeze, not in this sort of morning.

Todd went into his study, searched in a small vase on the bookshelf for the key to the desk drawer. The drawer contained little, really, but the map was there, inside a small book filled with verses he had written. Few people had seen these words, not out of Todd’s lack of confidence, but more out of his desire to keep some part of himself for himself, far from the pressures of those who claimed to know him best. Sylvie knew nothing of the poems, but Todd thought at times that perhaps she would not be surprised. Others would judge him harshly for the softness he expressed, and he had no desire for the crowds to see this part of him.

Sylvie. She came back into Todd’s thoughts once more, her fingertips now more real in their absence. He felt her everywhere, loss defining her more than she could have possibly defined herself in all the days she wandered through his space. He could so easily give into this, linger here in the comfort of missing that love. But now was the time to remember earlier times, other matters left unfinished.

Todd poured his travel cup full of coffee and turned off the machine. He grabbed the heavy backpack hanging on the hooks by the back door, and put the book inside as he stepped out into the new morning, the moon still bright, out down the dark roads. Police cars sat in the pull-outs along the ponds and fields, waiting for a lone speeder, perhaps, or just waiting for day.

home alone 2

“Well, that is that,” Todd thought as he pulled into the empty driveway.

Corners of newspaper advertisements stuck out of the mailbox. He didn’t bother to remove them. As he climbed from the car, he saw a scarf lying in the driveway. Her perfume. Maybe it was there before.

Todd fished again in his pocket for the house key, fiddled with the door–those old locks had to be just right. The house smelled mildly of mold and grass, that farmhouse scent of emptiness, as if the earth would swallow the whole of civilization quickly without a wood fire in the stove.

It was cold here now. Todd went to the basement and opened the door to the stove. Cold ashes filled the bottom, and he carefully scooped them out into the bin. The only good kindling was gone, and the wood itself wasn’t the best this time around–still too green, or maybe just too wet from sitting outside too long in the fallen leaves. He moved the driest log from the pile into the stove: a log with a lot of bark, rolls of newspaper beneath and beside. He struck the match. The paper burned, and the fire quickly went out. He rolled up a few more pages and lit them again.

As the bark began to burn, Todd thought of Sylvie’s hungry face as she lay in Jean-Paul’s hotel bed that afternoon. She reminded Todd more of a baby bird in the nest then than of the fun-loving libertine he had expected when he knocked on the door of #504. Sylvie’s lust these days seemed laced with expectation, her love–or was it disappointment?–confusing any desire he had to fuck her brains out the way he dreamed to when she was away from him.

The bark burned a little before the fire went out again. Todd tore up a cardboard box and lit more rolls of paper between the log, the fire flaming as he fanned it, the stove nearly hot enough to close. This was not a day he could leave the fire untended, and he spaced a few of the logs near the stove to dry out a little more.

Sylvie was gone.

He looked up the stairs and realized that the living room lights were still out, the kitchen cold and silent.

The log at last began to smoke. Todd was now covered in the scent of it himself, in the clothes and exhaustion of the day. He remembered the sound of Sylvie’s heels clicking on the floor, the door shutting, and her footsteps quick down the fifth floor corridor, the elevator door opening, ringing, closing.

The bartender had excused himself then, offering the panties first to Jean-Paul, then handing them to Todd before rushing back to the relative safety downstairs.

Todd had stayed there at the window then, Jean-Paul looking out then with him, both silent. They watched the street below, the right turn indicator of a convertible flashing, flashing, then gone.

It was Jean-Paul who had extended his hand when the silence became unbearable.

“She’ll come back,” Jean-Paul suggested, not fully privy to what had just happened. Jean-Paul meant well, though the hopefulness of his words only suggested to Todd that the opposite was more likely.

The French guy seemed likable enough, Todd had thought, the–yes–jealousy evaporating as Jean-Paul welcomed him into the room. It was friendly. It was hot. Sylvie had hoped to lure Todd there–he was sure this encounter was a test to him of some sort.

And he had pushed her away, pushed away his own fantasy, or at least that manifestation of it.

Todd closed the stove and walked up the steps from the cellar. He turned on the living room lights, and sat for a moment before running back down to check–yes, the fire was burning. He threw on two more logs, and went up the stairs, then to the shower.

He peered into the bedroom: the covers were neat. Yes, she had been here. The closet door was shut, everything strangely tidy.

Most of Sylvie’s toiletries were gone. Her towel was still mildly damp. Todd turned the water to hot and undressed as steam filled the room. He stepped into the tub, let the water run down his face, smoke and sweat mixed, blurred as his vision, his fatigue now overwhelming. Todd washed quickly and dried, then. Oh, the last night, the last days, sleep, sleep. He walked into the bedroom. He folded down the covers of Sylvie’s bed and climbed in. Within moments, Todd was asleep.