Delete: Delete

I call her name out into the great white space, my voice breaking from the weight of use.

“I’m sorry, the person you are looking for no longer exists.” The computerized voice repeats. It seems to echo in the emptiness, but the reverberations are nothing but my own twisted thoughts.

Falling to my knees, I feel my hope shatter. I was losing track of time. It could have been days, years. Nothing to accompany me but the message that she was gone. Fighting to find something within the nothingness left me battered and broken.

Numbing pain swells from invisible bullet holes, chunks of happiness ripped from the whole. This place was a coffin for the living, meant to house my soul until it withered, until it died, until it belonged. 

Cracks spiderwebbed across the sleek white surface, a fractured figure imprinted in what otherwise would be perfection. Me.

A tear slips to the floor as I try again, whispering through split lips. 

“I’m sorry, the person you are looking for no longer exists.”

Climbing to limp legs, I close my eyes. I feel my body sway under the pressure of living, unsuited for this condition.

Silently, I walk forward. 

The emptiness surrounds me, pressing in on all sides.

“I would like to see a directory.”

I open my eyes to watch the list form in the air in front of me. Endless names displayed neatly on this hovering monitor. None of them hers. 

My shaking fingers find the screen, scrolling through the alphabetized index.

I find my name and I press delete.