Toothbrush

After the breakup, what haunted her most was the thought of the toothbrush, an optimistic yellow shining in the sunlight on the porcelain sink.

 She felt a kinship with it, its abandonment, its loyalty to the companion blue toothbrush at its side, and its good will. She wondered how long it would stay there alone and unused.  Would her ex just toss it into the wastebasket one morning as he had tossed her aside one night? Maybe he would rouse from a sweaty nightmare of himself running frantically naked down the streets of Manhattan with a Monster Toothbrush chasing him and he would stumble from bed in a panic and fling the toothbrush at the mirror cursing all the while, “fuck fuck why can't I forget her”.  Or maybe one morning after washing his face he would gingerly pick up the forgotten toothbrush and absent mindedly brush his teeth, vaguely wondering at why he had two toothbrushes and then forgetting about it with a shrug and continuing on with his day.

She preferred the nightmare scenario.