The only feeling she knew was the cold neck of the wine bottle in her hand.  Perhaps it was autumn, for outside the filmy window the trees seemed to be rotting away from sickly yellow to dull dusty brown.  But she couldn’t open the window to inhale the crisp air.  That would require getting up.

                Most of her days were spent here, curled on the floor with her back to the spackled wall.  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d consciously taken care of herself.  Her once shiny blonde hair fell dull and limp over her shoulders, curtaining her gray-blue eyes from the world.  The clothes she wore were too big—they had been even before her already slim frame turned in on itself—and not even hers, but she couldn’t force herself to wear anything of her own.

                As time went by, the scent of him faded.  She wore the same t-shirt day after day, until she realized if she didn’t wash she couldn’t smell him anymore.  The only reason she had to bathe was to keep his scent alive.  She could wash the clothes in his detergent, but it wasn’t the same as pulling out some cloth from the depths of his closet.

                She brought the wine bottle to her lips.  She drank deeply.  Her lips were tainted purple.

                Food was scarce, and she couldn’t make herself consume.  Eating seemed like a luxury she didn’t deserve any longer.  The only reason she even had the wine was because of him.  He had been prone to surprising her with a ready-made dinner by candlelight, the wine already poured, his vibrant eyes sparkling as he toasted to their long lives, health, and happiness together.

                Those memories seemed so distant now.  She stared blankly as she swirled the dark liquid in the green bottle.  She willed herself to see some sort of picture, but even his smile was fading as time swept her by in a sea of molasses.

                She tried to watch the fireplace, but there was nothing to see.  Only ashes lay in its depth.

                None of them his.  He had been buried at his parents’ wishes, her own having no bearing.  She was only the fiancé, not quite his wife.  Not yet, because that was supposed to have happened when he returned from this deployment.

                It would have been over in January.  Instead it was over now, and he lay to rest on the other side of the continent.

                She swiped her hand across the floor, scattering dozens of crimson-stained corks past her feet.  The deeper she drank, the less real her world became.  But the longer that bottle was at her lips, the clearer his smiling face was.

                Then it grew duller and duller, until the anesthetic effect dulled her senses completely.  She was only sleepy now.  The bottle fell from her increasingly clumsy grasp.  Liquid like blood splattered her shirt and pants.

                She could only pray this time, as she faded out, that she would fade to wherever he was and embrace him once more.