Goodbye

In a normal, rural town the most fittingly normal woman lived, leading the most monotonous life one could ever imagine. She dressed normally, opting for jeans and a t-shirt nearly every day, and acted normally too, never doing anything out of what was considered to be ordinary. She had plain brown hair and a face one forgets the minute they look away, with the only feature even remotely interesting being her dark blue eyes. But even her eyes weren’t interesting enough to capture anyone’s attention longer than a few seconds, and the woman remained to be one of the most simple, plain people to exist.

However, the one thing that was different about her, her one oddity, was that she carried a small tote wherever she went, beat up and scuffed but there nonetheless. It was a simple leather bag, faded brown with dulled, metal buckles hanging over the fold-over top. It was very worn but clearly well-loved, for she carried it around no matter where she was going.

For the most part, the bag functioned as a normal purse, loyally carrying her wallet, keys, and an assortment of knick-knacks that one never actually puts in their bag, but they end up there nonetheless. But the bag had a purpose besides toting her things around, and that was to carry a letter, to protect it wherever the woman went.

The letter itself had a texture similar to the bag; rough with age and worn down around the edges. Slightly crinkled, the woman had kept the letter in her bag for as long as she could remember, and planned to keep it there for even longer. And keep it there she did, for years upon years until finally, the time was right to remove it.

The woman was at home when she finally took the letter out of the bag. It was the letter’s first breath of fresh air since she had written it herself, and it lay unassumingly on her desk as the woman bustled around it. She moved sluggishly, almost as if in a trance, dragging her chair away from the desk and out of her bedroom.

After a moment the woman returned, lovingly unfolding the piece of paper and smoothing it over the wooden surface of the desk. After a minute of staring at the letter, rereading it carefully, she moved to her closet and undressed, taking off her ratty jeans and bland t-shirt and replacing them with a beautiful black dress, elegantly crafted to fit the contours of her body. She slipped it on, and the ordinary woman became suddenly breathtaking, previously plain fair becoming the most memorable of all.

She sighed, taking one last glance at the letter before reaching under her bed to grab a long, thickly-woven piece of rope. She left the room with an air of certainty and determination, and did not return, not once.

All was quiet in the house for a brief, suspenseful moment before the sound of gagging filled the previously undisturbed silence. A bang echoed through the halls that startled the birds outside into flight, presumably caused by the tipping over of the chair the woman had dragged from the room minutes prior. There were horrible coughs and retches, heart-stopping wheezing gasps for air, before the house fell silent once more, plunging back into its ordinary state in its ordinary town.

-----

Three days later, and ambulance pulled up to the house, parking behind the police car that was already present at the scene. A body was carried away on a stretcher, black folds of fabric peeking out from underneath a white sheet. The police officer, sent to investigate the rest of the house, wandered into a bedroom, filled with nothing but simple bed and even simpler desk.

On the desk, was a letter. And on the letter, was one word.

Goodbye.