Dreamed Dreams

There’s a lot of fish in the sea, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and various other clichés are always handed out to desolate people after terrible break-ups. Empty, hollow words are tossed about in a meaningless attempt to make sense of everything. That’s getting ahead of the story though; to appreciate these sentiments we have to go back to the beginning. Well, actually we pick up towards the end of Edward Alonzo’s marriage so we are starting at the beginning of the end so to speak.

Edward was an average man of 30 at this point with thin blond hair and a worn-down demeanor. The color faded from his face years ago and wasn’t even a shadow of what he used to be when he married Kathy. She had retained much of her features throughout the years, mostly due to draining money from Edward for expensive make-up and fashion fads. Together in public they looked like an old man who had found his trophy wife despite the fact that Kathy was actually two years older than Ed. He worked as an accountant in New York City and she quit work as a waitress once she latched onto her piggy bank. In the 8 years of their marriage they had no children together and remained in a small uptown apartment, which was another unassuming facet of the Alonzo’s life. Simple white walls containing simple people and their simple lives no matter how they tried to “spice things up”. The only real way they tried to bring something more into the relationship was a desperate attempt by Kathy to keep around what she called her money, but what most people referred to as her husband. There were lingerie nights and “sexy” outfits, roleplaying, any sort of sexual play that Kathy could think of, but Ed grew tired of them easily and the spark never lasted for more than a few days. After a year or two of trying and failing the relationship fell dead, but the corpse of their marriage lingered as both were too stupid or stubborn, whatever you think, to leave. Ed because he simply had no inclination that nothing was wrong and Kathy because she couldn’t risk living on her own again.

While they were both content to live a life vacant of emotion and move around each other like ghosts if we fast forward a few months, divorce papers are being filed just like that. In the months between Kathy had been having an affair on the side and when she found out her lover had money and no wife, Edward became dispensable and that’s how we reached this point. The split was simple and clean and they both moved on as best they could, one obviously faring better than the other. A few weeks later, Edward was still in shock over the divorce as he somehow never saw it coming. His life continued in much the same way as when he was married however except now there wasn't a baleful stare across the table from a woman who was reconsidering the benefits of being a trophy wife to a man who had no need for a trophy. Someone on the outside might call it a sad existence, but after a few weeks Edward barely remembered that he had a wife as his life moved on. He became set in his ways after the divorce, so much so that the path he walked in the morning was worn down like an old field trail and that was perfectly fine with him. As far as he was concerned Kathy never existed and this wasn't due to any hateful scorn or resentment, but simply the result of an inept man who never should've been married in the first place. For Edward the past years of his life were like a dream, not a particularly fantastical one but it was pleasant and nice which was a fair description of Edward’s life as well. It wasn't a star-studded life, but it was normal and plain and Edward braved it heroically.