Bella

I moved from the basement to the dining room and sat there alone at the long table. It was set for six people and none of the placings or decoration had been moved or even touched. 

I brought my elbows onto the table and brought my hands together, clasped together, precious fingers interlocking. I brought my clasped hands up to my face, so that they were touching my wet lips, and I breathed through the clasped hands. It was an ever so slight combination between an exhaled breath and a sigh. Perhaps it was more of a sigh. Who’s to say. I wasn’t the one who set the tables – someone else did that. Which specific person set the table, I haven’t the foggiest. All I know is that as my eyes looked upon the settings, it all looked as immaculate as the settings normally did. 

As I sat there in the stillness, with my elbows on the table and my hands clasped there together, I could hear the ticking of the nearby clock on the wall and I could hear and also see the flickering of one of the lightbulbs up above in the candelabra set. I kept my wits and sensory faculties about me, and I knew without even looking that every one of the hairs on my arms were standing up. At attention. 

A trickle of sweat that started at my forehead ran down the side of my face and down to my jaw-line. It was an obstinate and perseverant trickle. I did not bother to wipe the trickle away, or shake the trickle away, and I let it continue to worm its way down so that it began to run down my neck. ‘This is ridiculous,’ I thought to myself, but I was determined to let the trickle run its course and I kept my elbows there on the table top with my hands clasped. I could feel it move down to my collar bone, and then it ceased to be.

One trickle of sweat follows another, right? Not in this case. I waited for the trickle to come, sprouting anywhere on the forehead, but as much as I was eager and ready for it to come to come and just start crawling, another one did not sprout. One and done, it would seem. 

I was waiting for something. I was waiting for something. I was waiting for anything. I was waiting for everything. I really wanted to hear a loud pop, or a scream, or the slicing and sleek sound of the guillotine. I knew it was highly improbable and unrealistic to hear any of these sounds from where I was situated, but I still found myself wanting to hear these things all the same. Practicalities aside, I found myself grateful for the ever-marching tick of the wall clock and the faulty and unpredictable flicker from the lightbulb.

I exhaled through my hands again. They felt cold, even though the AC was not on and the rest of my body was feeling rather warm.

My eyebrows furrowed and then they quickly raised. Both of them. I opened my mouth. “Bella!” I shouted.

No one and nothing responded.

“Bella!” I shouted again. No response, from any part of the house.

“Bella!” I shouted a third time. No one and nothing responded. I waited for any moisture to sprout from my tear ducts, to sprout and begin trickling like the sweat bead had. It did not come, from either duct, as much as I tried and as much as I wished it to. 

I was totally alone at this table of six. And I felt myself oddly and obstinately refusing to move my elbows or unclasp my hands.

Party for one. 

“Bella!” I shouted once more. No answer. No hope for anyone or anything to respond.