Maggie delicately closes the door.  It is clear she is anxious, but so am I.  She knows it.  I know it.  The quintessential awkward silence.  I glance down, realizing my hand is still in the box.  

“I....well....” I struggle to comment, and my suffering seems to radiate throughout the room, evidenced by Maggie’s nonplussed, apprehensive stare. 

“Maggie...I...” Once again, I fail to release my desperation in the form of words.  

My face began to mirror hers, distress rising slowly to the surface of the skin.  Our eyes met, and a remnant of the bond I felt so deep fluttered through my body and soul.  I could feel the cold metal of the firearm tingle against my fingertips.  I curl my fingers around the gun.   A look of quazi-boredom slowly spawns from her strained mien.  I inhale as deeply as I can.

“What is it?  Just **** tell me.” Maggie aggressively responds to my silence.  I breathe, filling my lungs to their full capacity.  Slowly, I exhaled.  As the air slipped through my mouth and nose, my fingers tightened on the handgun.  A tear instantaneously slid down the curve of my face.  I could tell that Maggie was holding back tears.  Her eyes seemed to tremble.  I quickly flick my eyes to view the treasure chest, and I gradually shift the gun out from beneath the memory-drenched documents, carefully keeping it out of Maggie’s view. 

“Just **** tell me already.” Her tone was both impatient and desperate, matching her facial expressions.  I inhaled deeply again, trying to finally sort my emotions.  No luck doing that, however.  I just stare at Maggie, a modern day mix of succubus and angel.  The tension in the room suddenly multiplies as Maggie sheds her first tear, and I feel more emotions.  I envy the salty drop.  I wish I could be the tear, sliding down the gentle curves of Maggie’s face.  In our tears, a common ground.  A paradoxical bond of sorrow wrought from happiness, connecting our souls.  The link fades into the mysterious abyss of my soul.  

“I just wanted...to say...goodbye.” 

“Goodbye.”  That word did more damage to me than anything else Maggie had ever said or done.  She leaves the room, halfheartedly pulling the door shut.  It did not latch in the frame, and slowly drifted back.  I was alone, just me, my emotions, and my treasure chest.  A tear drops from my face onto my finger, and trickles onto the cold steel handle of the pistol.  I release it from my fingers, the slight imprint of the grip present on my hand.  I shut the box, then immediately reopen it.  Calmly, I place it on the barren floor.  A solemn monument in this wasteland of emotion.  

I walk to the window, watching as Zeph wrestles the mattress into his Saturn Vue hybrid SUV.  Good to know he’s a fan of green in more than one way.  I hear the door of the apartment close.  I continue to watch Zeph contort the mattress for several minutes.  Eventually, it fits amongst the other remnants of the apartment I once shared with Maggie in his trunk.  He slams the hatch shut, and meanders to the driver’s door.  He pulls it open as Maggie appears on the sidewalk.  She pauses and sets the boxes she is carrying on sidewalk.  She appears to exchange a few words, presumably of thanks, with Zeph and Kiera. Before she leaves, she gives a disenchanted wave to the pair.  She lifts the boxes up again, and continues down the sidewalk to her car, a Prius.  A Prius leased with my money.  Leased to her by my love.  She opens the door and I observe as she slides each box of her possessions inside.  

I wipe my eyes, only to feel more salty trails of teardrops wander the landscape of my face.  A single droplet falls from my eyelash, piercing the thin layer of dust on the floor.  Maggie finishes loading the Prius and makes her way to the driver’s side.  She enters, glancing one last time at the building we once called home together.  She closes the door, and the car pulls away.  I silently move away from the window, ghosts of passion running rampant through my heart.  

I scoop up the memory box and leave this room, moving toward the small kitchenette.  The two packets of Ramen sit undisturbed on the counter.  I place my treasure chest down next to them, and I withdraw the pictures and love letters, fragments of the relationship I thought would never end.  I cannot bring myself to read the missives, but I know their words, carved in my mind with the knife of lost love.  I place them away in the treasure chest.  I clench my eyes shut, and open them, squinting through tears to close the treasure chest that is becoming a casket for my memories.  

I reach for the MSG-infused noodles.  I squeeze the thin package, feeling the dry noodles crunch.  I focus all of my energy, my memories, my passion into squeezing the Ramen.  My life had been the rapture of the lower middle class twenty-first century.  Now, I am left with Ramen noodles, God’s gift to the poor and desperate.