Profile for Erin Flaherty

I remember the end with a daunting visual and emotional clarity that is sometimes even accompanied by a distinctly palpable nausea. We were lying in bed one overcast afternoon, the bed we’d shared for years, the bed that had actually lived against a different wall when we first met, the bed with the creaky mattress that necessitated a trip to Sleepy’s, whereas there was no store where we could purchase a salve for our dying relationship. Annihilated by that particular form of fatigue that results from an exhausted argument for which there is no solution, we drowsed in and out of sleep. At one point I felt that very bed lift, as if suspended by an unseen platform, and to my left I could see a coursing, churning brook, and to my right, a dried up riverbed. As I caught myself falling to that side I jolted awake, felt him sleeping next to me, and tried to insinuate myself beneath his heavy arm. He too awoke with a start, and then rolled over to turn away from me. All the glassy looks, the distant conversations and the poison tongued exchanges suddenly seemed inconsequential compared to this very concrete action, proof that it was indeed over. Keep reading »