Broken (or The Morning After)

The sober silence of 07:38 AM on that Saturday morning in November—Broken. A sharp metallic ring filled the dim entranceway. The morning has not yet tendered its light into the home. It almost seemed as if the night was in denial of what had occurred, refusing to let day shed verity on the events that had unfolded on its watch. 

The chime persisted, echoing through the hallway where he ran, at age eight, muddied, innocent and in search of a goûter. It continued up the staircase and past the landing where each year of life he had earned was scrawled in pencil, accompanied by a line indicating his respective height. The least faded—an untidy 19 and an uneven line—would mark the end of a tradition.

Its shrill reached into the bedroom where she lay. Still as if sleeping, but that would have been impossible. She raised her head from the pillow to which she had confided her saline woes. She moved slowly down the stairs and past the living room. The TV still spilled the same images from the previous few hours into a room that would never again hear him roar in ecstasy when PSG scored. Those same images that would haunt her for perpetuity. She unhooked the telephone reservedly and put it to her ear half-hoping, but full-knowing what was coming. A final metallic ring caught in the air before fading to silence.

"Madame ?" It wasn't her son's voice. The voice that had filled this house with incoherent toddler-speak, adolescent tantrums and laughter that was not confined to any one period of his life. The voice that had told her not to wait up not twelve hours ago. The voice that had told her every five minutes throughout the night—the longest of her life—that he couldn't pick up the phone right now, but to leave a message and he would get back to her. The voice she was about to be told she would never again hear.

Her pursed lips quivered and the most unnatural sound escaped. The sound of a mother losing a son. "Madame... Je suis désolé..."