E Spirit

To all of his friends and relatives, John spent the afternoon after funeral in a haze. After all, the love of his life was gone. Everyone was quite concerned over his forced solitude. They all viewed him as one of the strongest, emotionally stable people in their circle. Both considered extremely attractive, no one could remember any instance where attention to either by the opposite sex caused even a scintilla of friction. Was it a testament to their stability?

John was quite a different person now, though. Since the news of the fatal crash that took Cindy from him, John was distant. His emotions were hidden behind an expressionless gaze. The fact that he had come to loath her was lost on everyone. Likewise, lost on all was the fact that he took her life. Murder as cruel as his hatred could conceive.

They had been together for over five years. When his reaction to her death failed to conform to any expected expression of grief; when the stages of grief failed to surface, his friends tried to comfort him. He reacted by becoming even more distant. They couldn't see the light ever returning to his life. His friends were missing something, though. Misinterpreting his silence as brooding, they slowly backed away. Left alone with his thoughts suited him fine. He spent hours planning how to continue the charade.

For the first time since the funeral he opened his email. He was mildly amused when he saw her email. It was dated the day before her death. It was nothing more than a few mundane comments. He was suddenly compelled to answer her email. His response was devoid of any sense that she was gone. It was just a mundane response to her email. He suddenly felt drained. He fell fast asleep with his laptop still propped open on his lap while he lay in his bed.

He awoke to the deepest dark of night. The time of the night when any insomniac would swear doom was near. His eyes cleared slowly as they adjusted to the glare of the computer screen. He slowly felt the grip of fear as he read the screen. The email was from Cindy. It simply said, "I am waiting for you. We will be together soon. Hell hath no fury, my love, like the fury you have brought upon yourself for your deed."