The Empty Stage

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Robert_Waldvogel]Robert Waldvogel
Eying the black suitcase only feet from where he stood in the living room, he could already feel its comforting handle in his palm.
"Go ahead and run out of here, like you always do!" she spat from the only remaining chair.
"Isn't that what you want," he roared back?
"Did I want it all the other times you did just that? And where did you go? Or should I ask, 'how many of them were you with?'"
Fumbling in his pocket for a match, he lit a cigarette. "And those business trips, which earned good money to pay for your comfortable lifestyle, still don't count for anything? Still don't convince you of my true intentions?"
Pulling up the sleeves of her blue sweater, she retorted, "That is the crux of it all. What your intentions were and what you actually did were two different things."
Blowing smoke and steam, he exhaled. "With what I have given you, Clara, you still insist that I was disloyal to you?"
"Disloyal to yourself is the more accurate term," she quickly inserted.
"What in the world is that supposed to mean," he howled?
"The same thing it's always meant," she returned. "How in the world can you be loyal to others when you're not even loyal to yourself-to who and what you really are?"
As he circled the easy chair, she studied him: his six-foot, two-inch stature somehow seemed diminished.
"I told you, damn you," he pitched back. "I'm not going through this again-because there's nothing to go through!"
Kicking her sandal off, she fumed, "Do you have to yell so loudly that all the neighbors can hear everything we say?"
Hobbling to the window on the one shoe, she glared through the afternoon drizzle. "I swear those Orsons across the street are watching everything we do, as if our lives were an open book. But it'll come back to all of them someday, I swear!"
As she jerked the curtain string, the room darkened.
"Why are you taking it out on them?" he roared, as he approached her from behind. "They had nothing to do with what went on between us?"
Spinning round, she glared at Samuel, whose sleek, jet-black hair and beard suddenly seemed salt-and-peppered.
"Because the ones I'd like to take it out on are nameless and faceless to me. You're familiar with every inch of them, I'm sure. I don't even know what they look like."
Glaring back at her, he focused on her blond hair, which had progressively shaded to silver. He had not noticed the change until now.
"You're right," she relented. "You're right. What difference does it make what they look like? What difference does it make if their names are 'Barbara' or 'Beatrice' or 'Blonde Bombshell?' But the damage is already done."
She paused while her thoughts caught up with her racing heart. A cough, echoing through the living room, sliced the silence like a knife; it came from neither of them.
"Clara, if you don't come off this foolish jealousy and mistrust..."
"If you don't come on to," she interjected, "you'll live the rest of your life in denial--in a lie--and it'll have your father's face written all over it!"
Throwing the half-burnt cigarette on the floor, he exploded, "How many times have I told you not to bring that bastard into the picture?"
"Maybe, just maybe, you'll see your own truth if you do. It's as plain as the nose on your face," she spat, sweeping her hand across the now-empty living room.
Wiping the sweat beads from her face, she felt her features, sharpened by the knife every past incident had cut into her heart.
Walking back to the chair and shaking her head, she pronounced in a calmer tone, "No, no, it's not the women. You're right. For once in your life, you're right. It's more than the women. It's your own weakness-your refusal to change what you won't acknowledge. More than anything, that's what got in the way of our marriage."
She fell into the chair, defeated and deflated. Sinking into apathy, she continued, "All to replace the love you never received as a child-your endless attempt to fill the hole in your soul with exactly what never could."
He glanced at the suitcase. "The hole that filled your life with this beautiful house, those clothes in your closet, those cruises you took. That's what kind of hole I am, I guess?"
"I didn't say that's what kind of hole you are. I said that's what kind of hole you have." Hesitating, she continued, "And regarding those cruises, I did them alone. I was alone every minute of them."
"What kind of crap are you dishing out at me," he threw back? "Are you suddenly delusional? Do you have amnesia or something? I was with you every second of every minute of them."
Looking at the floor, she stated, "Physically, yes. But emotionally, you weren't there. How could you be with a hole like that in your soul? You can't give something you don't have to give." She rubbed her eyes. "What a fool I was, thinking that I could change you. But it took me all these years to realize that I couldn't."
"What in the world is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that the lack is in you and only you can fill it. But you first have to try. And before that, you have to acknowledge it."
He only looked at her incomprehensibly.
As the corners of her eyes filled with tears, she fired, "Do you really think any of those women gave you anything other than an escape-than a quick fix? Anything real? I would've given you all the love in the world, damn you, if you had just opened the door to me. But I didn't know how to get in otherwise."
The suitcase became his only focus.
Standing up, she pleaded with her trembling body. "Could you, just once, just this time, see the void in your soul-the one that caused all of this?"
Looking at her paling face, he struggled, "I-I..."
With eyes reflecting a last glimmer of hope, she pressed, "Yes? Yes?"
Walking to the empty space once occupied by the brown leather sofa, he released a labored breath, "I..."
Firmly griping the suitcase's handle, he exhaled a final breath and galloped to the front door, slamming it behind him.
"Go ahead, you bastard," she screamed! "Leave! Leave so the whole world can see what you can't! And maybe someday you'll realize that you can't run from yourself."
Blurred by her tears, the living room, like an empty stage, stood testament to her failed marriage, his failed childhood, and the hole he had dug in both their lives.
For a brief second, the thought of following him flickered through her mind. But you can only light a candle so many times until it runs out of wax, she thought.
She slammed the bedroom door, located on the left side of the living room, leaving a souless silence--which was almost instantaneously filled with the audience's applause, and she knew she only had a few seconds in which to dry her tears before the first curtain call.
Samuel already stood at stage right, ready to bow to his fans.
A graduate of Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus with a summa-cum-laude Bachelor of Arts Degree in Comparative Languages and Journalism, I have subsequently earned the Associate in Applied Science Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York - College of Technology at Farmingdale. I have also earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College, the Travel Career Development Certificate from the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at LIU, the Art and Science of Teaching Certificate at Long Island University, and completed a Multi-Genre Writing Program at Hofstra University. At SUNY Farmingdale Aerospace I completed some 30 hours of Private Pilot Flight Training in Cessna C-152 and -172 aircraft.
Having amassed almost three decades in the airline industry, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations at Austrian Airlines, created the North American Station Training Program, served as an Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, and devised and taught the Airline Management Certificate Program at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center. A freelance author, I have written some 70 books of the short story, novel, nonfiction, essay, poetry, article, log, curriculum, training manual, and textbook genre in English, German, and Spanish, having principally focused on aviation and travel, and I have been published in book, magazine, newsletter, and electronic Web site form. I am a writer for Cole Palen's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York. I have made some 350 lifetime trips by air, sea, rail, and road.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Empty-Stage&id=6645343] The Empty Stage