Lament

He was gone.

Sheila walked in a daze amongst the bare, white walls. Nothing had been left behind. The only evidence that anyone, let alone that almost bald headed jester called "Him", had ever been here was the red wine stain that roughly resembled Janis Joplin on the white carpet.

He was gone.

There was no note saying goodbye or telling his friends where he was going but Sheila hadn’t expected there would be. He was the type of guy that figured anyone they might want to see again would know where to find him. God knew he had talked about it enough. Maybe Sheila would get a call from him in about six months or so inviting her to some concert or other. Then again maybe not. He wasn’t a person that lived in the past and, as much as it hurt Sheila to admit, that’s exactly what she was, to a greater extent.

"Him", her friend, was gone.

In a desperate search for some artifact of "His" existence, Sheila found herself searching every crevice of the small apartment. Eventually she found what she was looking for. A snapshot of the five of them kneeling around. Five of them? Hadn’t there been six? Sheila studied the picture and counted them off as she took inventory of her friends. There was Rick, the lanky, tow headed, surfer boy who, Sheila was pretty sure had never seen the ocean. There was Bill kneeling on the carpet, heavy lidded, looking about ready to fall over. Sheila gave her own image a curious glance and wondered why her arm was out the way it was, almost as if it were draped around the shoulders of an invisible friend. Just then it struck her who was missing. He never missed a chance to ham it up in front of the camera.

But now, he was gone.

“He must have been the one taking the picture” Sheila told herself, not believing it. The night came flooding back to her. Sheila and "Him" had been arguing about something trivial and for some reason he had lost his temper and thrown his glass of wine to the floor before storming out, only to return five minutes later with a sheepish grin on his face to apologize. Sheila knew that he had been in the picture because they had put their arms around each other’s shoulders not only to show friendship but to keep each other from falling. Besides, why was Sheila’s arm out as if she were hugging a ghost?

Sheila didn’t begrudge "Him" anything, in fact she was glad that he had gotten out while he could. She thought back to the conversation that they had just a week before. He had been talking about going to Fiji and raising sheep’s and dolphins which she totally detested...