Jordan Allan

The House of Happiness

Your name hurt. It hurt to say. Hurt to think. Hurt to hear. Each syllable slowly unravelled, dragging its nails down my heart of stone until it cracked. The grey rubble fell, bit by bit, until all of the memories, all of the joys, all of the pain, gushed from the cracks, drowning my insides before overflowing through my eyes. I wasn’t supposed to cry. But that book. That damned black book is the last thing I have left of you. And I don’t know how much longer I have left with it. I close the tear-stained pages and press them between the tattered leather cover. Running my fingers along the spine I notice every detail — every indentation, every cavity, every scratch — and savour it for what may be the last time. I lift my head from the indelible journal on the marbled bathroom bench and lock eyes with myself in the dull, elongated mirror in front of me. Everyone always tells me I have your brown eyes and perhaps once upon a time I did. They were like golden pools of honey which absorbed gleams of sunshine and reflected their sweetness back into the souls of anyone you looked at. Passersby would grin and anyone lucky enough to engage in a conversation with you would leave in a sugar coma, so deeply paralysed by happiness and pure contentment. Now my eyes are empty, broken — sheer brown — and, as for yours, I’ll never get to see them again.