A dark blur of cotton and poly-blends flew past him at such a rate of speed that he found his hands instinctively covering his face before his mind could even register the meaning in the imagery.

In one fluid, dramatic motion she had pulled the majority of items from her closet and hurled them across the room with such intensity that one would have expected the opposing wall to crumble upon impact, were it not that she had thrown harmless clothing as opposed to a boulder or a Volkswagen Beetle.

As though at the flip of a switch, her demeanor changed in an instant, from enraged and inconsolable to calm and eerily focused. She gazed right through him and simply stated, “I want to fucking die”.

The proverbial wheels in his brain must have been busted, or at least hindered by minor breakage at some pivotal point in their mechanics. The method to her madness was incomprehensible to him. How had a raging tantrum over a shirt not fitting properly turned to talk of suicide? Was this normal? Did this escalation follow some natural thought pattern he himself did not possess?

He dealt in logic and reason, and almost always in an even keeled manner. Such was made obvious by his pensive, yet sincere response to her outburst:

“Well, why don’t we buy you some new clothes? We can go right now. Seriously, let’s go.”

She dealt in abstracts, ideas, emotions, and almost always in an impassioned and fiery manner. Thus, her subsequent reaction followed as such:

“You really think I’m upset about a fucking piece of clothing not fitting properly? I’m trying to tell you that I hate this life. I’m trying to describe the overwhelming appeal of ending my own existence and you do not hear me.”

He paused, contemplating his next utterance in fear of provoking another unpredictable and confusing explosion. In his pausing, he turned his attention away from her tear-stained face and to the pile of clothing cluttering the floor at his feet. He stared deep into the varying shades of black, looking desperately for some clue into her state of mind.

She too stood, staring blankly into the same heap of shirts, pants, skirts, and jackets. To her, each item was a constraint, a regret, a lost hope, and the sum of them equaled a mountain of sadness and fear.

Unfortunately for them both, all the logic and passion in the world would never change the tragic fact that all he saw was a wardrobe that had simply fallen out of her favor.