FicWad

Moments when your life changes: there will always be a before and an after, seperated, perhaps, by a knock at the door. I had been interrupted. I was tidying up. I had cleared up yesterdays beer cans and wine glasses, scrap pieces of paper and envelopes and placed them in the basket by the grate ready to make a fire after supper. I had just got the pasta bubbling nicely. My first thought when I heard the knock at the door was that Joe had forgotten his keys, or phone, or something, but then I remembered he couldn't have because I made sure he had them when he walked out after the party last night. Anyway, even if he had left them, he wouldn't have knocked, he would have shouted through the letterbox. Perhaps it was a seller, ready to try and persuade me to buy the cheap rubbish that people usually try to sell these days. I turned away from the cooker and through the hall to the front door, and opened it to be greeted by a cool gust of air.
It wasn't Joe, or a friend, or a seller, not a neighbour, a stranger, an enemy. Two female police officers stood in front of me. One looked like a schoolgirl, with a blockfringe covering her eyebrows and pointy ears, and one was like her mum, with a square jaw and short, thin grey hair.
"Yes?" Had I been caught stealing something? Drinking too much? Smoking something illegal? Of course I knew I hadn't but thousands of worried thoughts filled me as the possibilites mounted.
"Holly? Holly..." I nodded, curious.
"Can we come in?"
I led them into the small living room.
"You're the current girlfriend of Joe Rakes?" I folded my arms. What had he done? What had happened?
"Yes."
In that one moment, I could see everything, hear everything that happened. I saw how the younger one looked up at the older one, as she said the words I dreaded to hear. I noticed the little spider in the corner of the living room slowly climb into the small gaps in the wall. The smell of burning reached me from the kitchen, and I remembered that I hadn't turned the ring off and it would be dry and ruined. Then I remememberd, it didn't matter that it was ruined, no one was going to be eating it now. I could feel the darkness thickening outside. Dark and chilly. In couple week's time the clocks would go back. In a few months time it would be Christmas.
"I'm very, very sorry, Holly, but Joe has been involved in a fatal accident." Silence filled the room.
"Drunk driving..." the older once added in, "last night...he and two other cars collided. He died instantly..." She burbled on about the details. I couldn't hear her anymore. This awful ringing noise filled my ears. No tears. Nothing to say. Emptyness filled me, swallowing me up.
"Why?" I croaked, before I could stop myself. They both looked at me, puzzled.
"Why... last night? Why wasn't I informed earlier?" The younger police officer cleared her throat.
"He wasn't discovered until this afternoon. His body was almost...disintergrated. Burned in the after fire. And then we could not identify him as most evidence was burned away at the scene." The ringing noise was back. It was deafening.
"We are so sorry,Holly. Perhaps you should stay with a friend tonight?" I shook my head.
Fatal Accident.
Died Instantly.
Burned in the fire.
"Thank you. Thanks, again. Go now, please, thank you." I shushed them out through the hallway again.
"Are you okay? We do not think you should be alone."
"I want to be alone. I am very well, thank-you please." I knew I wasn't making sense, but I had to get them to leave. Perhaps this was all a lie. A story, something in a book.

But even I knew it wasn't.