Electric-Blue

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"I took some pills on an empty stomach," she said, disinterested in the grilled salmon and asparagus plated before her.

 

The tabletop candle flickered as if agitated by ghosts in the otherwise still room. 

 

"You'll feel better if you have a few bites," I said. "You need something on your stomach," I continued, my own food untouched.

 

"I think I'm too far gone at this point," she replied, somnolent, narcotized and listless. “Too hungry to eat, too nauseated."

 

What had become of her? Her vitality, the woman that once had insisted on taking the long way home so as to listen to “just a few more songs”?

 

I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.

 

“It is what it is,” she said flatly, looking down into her iPhone, her face under-lit with an otherworldly electric-blue glow.

 

Her fingers danced across the screen, talking to disembodied people as if conducting of a seance.

 

What should I say? What could I say when she was so far away?

 

"I'll just put this in the fridge, then," I said, realizing that there were fewer and fewer things we shared.

 

"Ok," she said.

 

"Ok," I said.