Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 94

I picked this week's photo as it is Valentine's week and it seemed appropriate. It was created by a company called Ars Thanea, and it is an actual sculpture they made, called The Ash. An explanation about how they did it is here.

I have gone with a standard storyline this week, one of heart break, although some might relate to it.

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Ashes

She used the poker to push them into the centre of the coals and sat back watching them crinkle and burn. The initial burst of fire consumed the fake roses then died down. The blackened roses retained their shape as the embers lit them from beneath, giving them an ethereal glow and tingeing their edges with red light.

Alexis remembered when she’d bought them; they were part of the fad of roses that had become the in-thing to have in your home. She’d been full of love then, full of hope, full of dreams about her new relationship.

Rafe had moved in just weeks before. It had been heady days, they’d barely come out of bed that first week. Then they had slipped into an easy routine and easy roles, never a cross word; everything talked out properly. Their hearts and feelings taken seriously by each other, and the flowers had sat proudly on the mantelpiece as a representation of that, of their commitment to each other.

Alexis felt her heart ache for those times, but years had passed and slowly things had decayed. She couldn’t pinpoint when or what, just a slow erosion of life, and then of distance as Rafe found a new job that included a lot of travel, and the silences between them became less comfortable and more like a void.

She’d developed her own life, both career and social life. She’d had to establish one on her own with him being absent most of the time. And when he’d return he’d talk about people, places and a life she didn’t know, a life she was no longer part of, and then she’d realised she was doing the same.

And then the thought had crept in, ‘what was the point of being together if they were living separate lives?’ And it had grown, making the void bigger and become like an abyss. Then the tension had grown. When he was home it had felt like he was in the way, that he was interrupting her life, and she knew he felt it too.

But rather than talk about it, like they would have done at the beginning, they kept their own counsel. Fear had crept in, fear that if they voiced it, it would be painful, that it might make it worse – when it fact it probably would have made it better.

And then the day had come. The day they both had dreaded. He had told her about another job opportunity, another life he could go and lead, but this time permanent in a far off land she’d never heard of. He had suggested she could come too, a tiny spark in his eyes, but in the same breath he had also provided reasons why it wouldn’t be a good idea, and she wasn’t convinced it was what he wanted.

Then the tears had come, the ending had come, and although they used the excuse of the job as the reason for the break-up they both knew the truth: their love had died and they had let it, and there was nothing to share anymore.

Alexis sat looking in the fireplace at the roses that had meant so much to her. No tears came now, no regret, just numb. And as the coals slumped and broke apart so did the roses, crumbling to ash, just like her heart.