Midnight Cry

Tears for the heart

The clock tower loomed over the city, its mechanical heart a constant reminder of Gloria's fracturing one. Each night, with the inhuman bong of twelve, a ritual as precise as any religious ceremony commenced within the stark confines of their bedroom. The starched sheets, once a symbol of marital bliss, now felt like a shroud. Tobi, her husband, lay sprawled beside her, a monument to oblivious slumber, the faint scent of another woman clinging to him like a spectral perfume.

The tears came first, a single, fat drop escaping a corner of her eye, tracing a glistening path down her temple. It was a solitary herald of the storm to come, a storm that raged not with thunder and lightning, but with the suffocating silence of her heartbreak. Soon, the sobs would rack her body, a primal keening that echoed in the emptiness beside her. Tobi wouldn't stir. He hadn't stirred in months, not since the scent of betrayal had permeated their once-sacred space.

Gloria clung to the memories, a lifeline in the churning sea of her despair. The stolen glances across a crowded room, the nervous fumbling of their first kiss, the whispered promises etched into the fabric of their youth. All now a cruel tapestry woven with threads of deceit. She'd seen the lipstick stain on his collar, a brazen splash of crimson against the stark white of his work shirt. The incriminating text, a single, damning sentence left carelessly on the kitchen counter – a monument to his carelessness, a dagger to her heart.

The world outside continued its relentless march. Cars honked their impatient symphonies, sirens wailed their mournful songs, but within the walls of their loveless prison, time seemed to stand still. Each choked sob was a tick of the clock, a testament to the minutes, hours, and days stolen by his infidelity.

There were nights when a primal rage threatened to consume her. She'd imagine confronting the other woman, a fiery-haired wraith who haunted her dreams. But rage, she knew, was a luxury she couldn't afford. Tobi, with his indifference, had already taken so much. She wouldn't relinquish her dignity as well.

As the storm subsided, leaving behind a trail of salty tears and a raw, aching throat, a semblance of peace would settle over Gloria. An exhausted calm, a quiet acceptance of the unbearable. She'd stare at the sliver of moon peeking through the blinds, a silent confidante in her nocturnal symphony of grief.

The following day would dawn, a pale imitation of its former glory. Gloria would go through the motions – the forced smile at her colleagues, the mundane tasks of domesticity, a ghost haunting the house she once called home. But beneath the surface, the embers of her heartbreak would smolder, waiting for the witching hour, for the clock tower's mournful knell to unleash the torrent once more.

This cycle, this purgatory of midnight tears, became Gloria's reality. Days bled into weeks, weeks into months. Her reflection in the mirror was a stranger – hollow eyes rimmed with red, a ghost of the woman Tobi had fallen in love with.

One night, a different kind of tear traced its way down her cheek. It wasn't a tear of sorrow, but a tear of something else entirely. A steely resolve flickered in her eyes. Tobi's betrayal had shattered her, but it hadn't broken her. She would not spend the rest of her life a prisoner of his infidelity. With a newfound strength born of despair, Gloria knew what she had to do.

The decision, once made, settled in Gloria's gut like a cold stone. It wasn't a decision fueled by rage or a desire for revenge. It was a decision born of a quiet acceptance, a realization that clinging to the wreckage of their marriage offered no solace, no path forward.