Hey guys!! Here is my short story entry for.  TreasureCommunity   and ray_of_sunshine9   Called  The Frangments of Forever.

I used prompt one. Here it is:

Here is the cover i made for it.

Its a bit crappy, but its late so I wasn't feeling like I had to put too much effort into it:

Okay here is the short story!! I really hope you all like it!!

Her pale frame shook with such tremor, it was as if she was about to burst into shards of glass, sprinkle herself along the floor, and lay there, fragmented into millions of little pieces, for as long as she could breathe.

The nearly empty, tall, reflective glass of 1954 Bordeaux wine slipped out her frail hand, and slowly, almost tauntingly, tumbled towards the plain marble floor she had always worked so hard to keep clean. The glass finally landed, after what seemed both like years and like milliseconds, with an ear shattering clamor, and settled the wine on the mirror like off-white floor of her Victorian home.

But in that particular moment, nothing could have drawn her out of her state of forlorn.

It was at times like these that she would be reminded of her father's old saying; "There are only three reasons a person would ever wish themselves to be dead. Out of pain and suffering, out of hate for oneself, and out of misery for the loss of a family member."

Of course, the reason her father even said this was after her poor old mother had died. Her father would say this to her, every night before she would lay herself to sleep, but when he had killed himself, having been discovered cut up in the bathroom when she was seven, she realized that he had told this to her for his own benefit, for he had wished death upon himself.

And now here she found herself, woebegone, wishing she was dead. And not for any one of the reasons her daddy had told her a person would wish it, but for all three. All three reasons stabbing her like the shards of glass lying on the floor and glistening with the reflection of her tears.

For she could not fathom that he was gone. She could not fathom that this terrible fate seemed to follow her. And this, this disconsolate feeling, was worse than she had ever felt in her whole dreary existence. Worse than when her mother had died in that car accident those many years ago. Worse than when she walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth when she was seven, and instead found her father's cut-up, lifeless body, with one last look of pain over his never-changing glum face. Worse than when she received the news that the love of her life, her husband of 15 years, had died in that terrible war against the nations of the south, his body too deranged and burnt to be recognizable.

This was worse than the pain she felt every time someone she loved, someone she relied on to be with her through the hardest of times, had gone. Worse than the summative of all those times, rolled into one big miserable ball of agony and torment. It was as if those little shards from that tall glass had floated into the air and were sinking themselves into her, slowly, relishing the taste of her pent up pain, prodding at her heart which was already nearly empty, feeding off this feeling that never left her.

She wished she was dead. How strongly she wished that God would hear her pleas, and take her broken, miserable life, and put her out of her misery like the old dog she was. To let her escape.

Alas, God had different plans, and no quick and sudden death became her as she stood paralyzed by the news she had just received from the stout, heavy man with rimmed glasses and a scraggly attempt at a beard sticking off his chin. She had half a mind to slap him, let her anger and frustration out on him. How dare he come into her home and tell her this horrible news? Why, she would be better off not knowing, and wondering why he never returned her calls and why he never spoke to her, and why he never came home.

She would have been better off letting her feelings of doubt succumb her than her feelings of pain. Oh how she wished she were dead. Better her than him. He had so much hope, so much love, so much life left in him. Better her dead than him.

He was it. Her last chance at happiness. Her last chance to love. To live. Her last chance before she broke into too many pieces to put back together, like the glass shards on the ground.

But he was gone, and so was she. Never to love again, never to be happy. She had lost it all. She had lost him. She had lost Henry. Her darling Henry was dead and she would never see him again.

It was as if the world was over. No, it had not ended, but it was over. Unrecognizable. It was there, but its melancholy existence was as pointless as all the money in the world that she had come to possess. It was as worthless as the leather clad furniture standing in her lavishly decorated front room. As worthless as every bit of clothing she had come to buy in order to drown out the pain and loss she had felt from her husband's death, before she had turned to alcohol.

Oh alcohol was the only thing, she found, that could drown out the pain. It numbed her with its bitter taste and briefly filled up the gaping hole in her chest that she felt every time she would think of him.

The cool, bitter taste of old Bordeaux was the only thing in the world that could calm her. Until she found Henry.

He was hers, and she was his. And suddenly the need to derive her pain with the smooth taste of her daily bottle or two, disappeared, just as promptly as it had first made its prominent appearance known in her pathetic excuse for a life.

She would never feel the warmth of his embrace in her arms, or the feeling of his chest rising and falling, in harmonious tune with her own breathing, as he slumbered in front of their television.

Nothing could ever satiate this empty feeling inside her. Nothing could ever make up for this one last thing she had lost. No parents. No husband. No Henry. Nothing.

And as all these thoughts gathered in her head, it seemed like the world had sped on by without her, leaving her in a whirlwind trail of pain and sorrow, staring emptily at the tracks for the train of happiness that she had missed. That she always seemed to miss.

How could she ever live, knowing the ones she loves, or, she supposed, loved, couldn't?

No, loves was the correct word. Just because they were gone did not mean that she would ever stop loving them! Because of this, she knew that she could never allow her feelings that yearned for the easy solution of death, dominate her morality. For they would want her to live. They would want her to love. They would want her to move on.

She couldn't love, though. Nor could she ever move on, in fact, she quaked at the very thought of moving on. But she could live. She could try, at least. Maybe that was enough to keep her going until in Heaven she would be reunited with them all again. Maybe it was enough.

Fuck it, she wanted to die, but she knew she couldn't. She never could bring herself to selfishly take her life, as did her father. Not while she had someone left who needed her, like she had needed her daddy when she found his bleeding, decaying corpse in that bloody bathroom.

And even though, she realized, she had no one left who needed her, she still had to live. They all would want it. Her mother, her father, her husband, and most importantly, her Henry.

So, in what seemed like a thousand years, but really was a matter of seconds after the cold glass, nearly empty of the wine she had swallowed with such celerity, had left the tips of her wrinkly, pale fingertips, she had come to the conclusion that she would try to live.

So as the squat man patted her on the lower back, because he couldn't quite reach her shoulders in her tall black heels, it took everything in her not to fall apart.

And as the short man stood, he spoke, in such a high pitched voice, it almost seemed it belonged to a dear little girl, not a full grown, or rather incredibly short, man who identified himself as an officer of the law. His black eyes appeared to be making an attempt at sadness, but portrayed only pity for the broken woman in front of him, as he spoke the words that would finally throw her over the edge. The words, after which, even years later, she would laugh insanely, going completely, and understandably, mad upon hearing them.

"I truly am sorry for the death of your son, Mrs. Quinn. I know he was incredibly young, 6 years old, was it? He didn't deserve to die."

And there they were. The words that finally broke her. Not the loss of her mother. Not the suicide of her father. Not the unjust death of her lover, but the passing of her child. Her last chance at love, happiness, and the possibility of forever. Her last chance.

And so the man got up, mumbling a quick "No one ever does seem to deserve it, now do they?" and left Mrs. Quinn alone. Finally shattered beyond recognition, a body without a soul, an empty vessel of organs, by herself in the darkness. Nothing but her tears, and the small fragments of her heart, partaken inside the bits of glass covering the empty white floor, alone in a place no one could ever recognize as a home.

Okay hope you like it!!!!