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He knew he’d gone too far this time. He felt it in the way his body seemingly burned and ached as a form of punishment. He felt it in the way the words “soulless machine” still stung on his lips, and her heartbroken expression still lingered in his mind as if his retina was an old TV with a scene from a movie all too often watched burned into the screen.
He wasn't even sure why he had said it. It’s not like he believed it, not at all. He could barely even remember the argument leading up to it. Just the feeling of being trapped, pinned to the wall like a frightened animal that had finally been caught.
She had struck a nerve, swung too close to the source of something genuine and he’d fought back with teeth and claws. Barking out the harshest thing he could say in hopes she’d leave him be.
And she’d stood there. Dead silent. Eyes wide and brimming with unshed tears.
The moment the words had registered in his head he’d felt bile rising in the back of his throat.
“Karen I-”
She hadn’t said anything.
She always had something to say, some witty retort, some offended gasp and lecture.
But she hadn’t said anything.
“Karen?”
He’d stepped forward to place a hand on her shoulder.
“Honey-”
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
She’d violently taken him by the arm, throwing him off of her, causing him to stumble in the process.
Oh god, he’d fucked up. He’d fucked up bad.
“Sweetie I didn’t mean it I was just upset and-”
“Stop speaking. Do not speak to me. GET OUT”
They’d stared at each other for a good few moments. That stifling silence Plankton hated finding its way into every corner and crevice. The only thing keeping it at bay being Karen’s shaking gasps for air.
“I….” Her voice trailed off.
He’d stared at the floor, his mouth firmly shut.
And without another word, a look of decisiveness had washed over her and she'd turned sharply on her heel before walking out the front door.
Plankton had immediately felt a wave of sheer panic and desperation hit him square in the chest. He was suffocating. She wasn’t turning back. He could barely make out the words that would allow him to beg. He was silent. He hated being silent.
He was silent and she was gone. The only things proving she was ever there being the bile in the back of his throat and the stack of half-washed dishes in the sink.
And now he sat, swaying slightly in his armchair, a glass of whiskey grasped loosely in his hands. Intoxication fogging his mind and the fine line between rage and remorse.
Some old jazz classics played on vinyl, bumping and skipping as the old record player fought for life. He couldn’t bring himself to care all that much, at least it was something. The room wasn’t so quiet with it playing.
He was angry. A sort of self-righteous and self-pitying anger had welled up in his stomach as he gazed absently at the liquor in his glass as it swirled around the ice.
What right did she have to leave? What right did he have to speak to her like that?
How typical of her to get so worked up over such a small comment.
Was it really that small of a comment?
…
He took a sip of his whiskey.
A new song spun to life on the record filling the room with its melancholy tune. Plankton froze in his seat at the song's familiar presence. And suddenly, he was newly 17 again, wiping his sweaty hands off on his jacket whilst nervously swaying back and forth, Karen by his side.
Plankton stumbled to his feet and began to sway to the music. His feet knew the steps as if no time had passed, his hands wrapped around her imaginary hips.
If he closed his eye it was almost as if she was there with him. As if they were newlyweds dancing to their song. As if they were teens rowdily swinging off-beat. As if when he opened his eye she’d be there in front of him staring at him with an unwavering trust that had yet to have been broken. He leaned into her ghost with eyes squeezed shut.
He could nearly feel her touch.
He stumbled and spun, the echo of her laugh ringing out across the room and a smile daring to cross his face.
Then the record skipped, he lost his footing, and it all came crashing down around him. He hit the floor with a loud thud and lay there gasping for air through stunned lungs as the lights of the past dimmed. The only sounds now keeping the silence at bay were his own stuttering gasps.
She was gone and he was silent. His lips still stung and his eye still burned. If there were any tears gathering in it he didn’t pay them any mind.
Plankton couldn’t quite bring himself to move and so he lay there, guilt pinning him to the ground and clogging all his airways.
He wanted so badly to be angry, to feel that righteous anger and self-pity, to believe so fully that she was the one in the wrong. But she wasn’t the one in the wrong now was she? She was just an innocent bystander to his slow and gradual decline, a casualty of his own inability to regulate emotions.
“You’re pathetic Sheldon” he mumbled, spitting out his first name as if it was poison.
And then quieter
“I know…”
If Plankton had been a better person, one capable of true self-reflection, he perhaps would have realized that this whole thing was never about him.
That the person truly affected was nowhere to be seen, that he’d been too caught up in his own pity to wonder where she even was.
And perhaps Plankton was a better person, maybe even one capable of self-reflection, because in that moment he sat up with a sickening sense of dread in his stomach.
Oh god, he really didn’t know where she was…
The clock ticked awfully loud, his heart beat rapidly in his ears, his hands twitched nervously in his lap, and the vinyl spun back to life.
At least it wasn’t silent.