He didn’t keep my winter coats. I left them there. That’s what I told everyone, especially myself. The disillusioned state carried on. Who knows where the winter coats are now, but the relationship had ended as one tosses a q-tip into the trash bin. It was never sought after again.
It had missed its shot, and the culprits, too lazy to retrieve the q-tip, left it there on the cold tile to gather dust. Too weary and too confused over where they had ended up. In a foreign country. In a new language. With him. Fighting. The crying. The palookas of misdirected anger. An argument about toilet paper that had gone unpurchased. A cigarette ash that had missed the ashtray. It’s all your fault. They had each wanted to scream at one another but really, it was best said to themselves – to their reflection amidst the post-scorching-shower fog they attempted to hide themselves in. To somehow time travel in the shower’s clouds of steaming hot air to the beginning when they were out of reach of time’s unruly grasp. Until it was the end.