Merlot and Coffee

Unearthed draft

She looked wistfully into her wine glass.

Almost empty.

She turned her gaze very slowly to the kitchen bench, where the bottle of half-empty merlot sat, then gradually back into the depths of her glass.

There were days when she drank with friends.
There were days when alcohol was used as a social lubricant.
There were of course those days when she drank to forget.

Today was one of those days.

Sad as it was, she drank alone.

Not because she had to, not because she had been deserted,
but simply because she was too exhausted for anything else.

Too exhausted to make a cup of coffee, too exhausted to leave the house, too exhausted to fight anymore.

Too exhausted to be anything but submissive to what appeared to be her fate.