The End!

The sound of rain pelting on zinc roofs plagued his hearing, shutting out everything else pleasant that he may hear. Drenched in the rain, his clothes soaked and clung to his body like a second skin, forming up against every contour of his body, the very clothes that once hid his frail frame now exhibiting his skeletal form without offering any comfort for privacy. Were his clothes melting into his skin, he wondered? Why did it feel so heavy? How long was he moping on the bench? Why don’t the memories seem to go away? His drenched state paled in comparison with the turmoil in his head. The turmoil caused by residual memories of a past that he still wishes was revived. He could feel his fingers wrinkle up, signs that he has been out in the rain for too long. There wasn’t a soul in sight; a feeble attempt for self comfort that there may be others who suffer a similar fate. “Not a soul in sight?” he wondered. There goes the hope that someone may take sympathy with his state and stutter a few words of comfort. Stutter...yes, that is the word, Stutter. How else can words escape the lips of someone drenched, cold and hungry? Why he cannot get the thoughts out of his head he never knew. It was all surreal, the months that past, the smiles and the joy of familiarity. Before he could get his fill of those emotions, everything crashed like pearl harbour by dawn. One moment life was good and the next, it was as though hell was a perfect embodiment of tranquillity. While the thoughts in his head kept playing again and again, the rains were subsiding. The flooded streets were carrying the remnants of litter and dirt into the drains. Someone’s plush toy, a bear, floated past hurriedly, dirty, filthy and a shameful sight of itself. The last few drops of rain smoothed off the leaves, and fell into puddles below, causing ripples. As he sits and stares into the puddle on the floor in front of him, he wishes he could’ve changed time. He wished that he could’ve made a difference when he could have or at least took a dagger to his heart when he should have, when that thought had crossed his mind. But he knows that option would not work right now. If only his prescience kicked in when it should have, then he could’ve avoided the misery. Now even death seemed impossible for what he felt was now was no longer the hurt or the anger, it was....it was nothing. A strange and overwhelming sense of nothingness. Neither the pain nor the rain bothered his soul. It was although his senses died and now he was a fallen leaf that just waits for time to slowly and surely decompose it into nothingness. His reflection from the puddle mocking him, as though sniggering at him with a wry grin upon its face. The puddle rippled, caused by one last drop of rain. But there wasn’t anything above where he was seated. There weren’t any trees, flags or anything, simply a short building. Was it rain? It couldn’t have been. No...it was the last drop of tear His tear. One that sneaked out of his eyes without his realisation. The ripple distorting his image on the puddle momentarily. The silence in the milieu causing further misery in his heart. He stared blankly at the reflection that was his own. The sunken face, eyes that have retreated deep into its sockets as though hiding itself from the world, not wanting to be noticed. The placid expression on the puddle was a result of months of memories and nightmares that he cannot run away from. No matter where he went, it followed him like a plague. Never stopping at dawn or dusk, it was all the same to him. He could never want the sunrise and he could never accept the sunset. Wishing that this emptiness stopped, he lifts himself off the bench.

Every step he took, he hoped it was one away from the desolate past and into a new beginning. He hoped for new parallel of dreams and aspirations that he could begin weaving. The neon lights across the street flicker, the light bulbs failing. What use is a light bulb if it fails? Doesn’t it fail it’s very purpose for which it was made? The only destiny that was meant to be fulfilled through the illumination it provided now seemed a null, a void, apposite to the nothingness that plagued him. The atelier to which the lights were a beacon held a tagline that read “Where the stories begin”. “Interesting”, he thought. Will they be able to alter stories though, he can’t help but wonder. Alter his story, and create an ending that he desires. He wouldn’t be picky on which ending he wanted. He already knew the ending that would satisfy him. He knew what ending that would allow him the joy and eternal bliss. But that ending, he too knew, was a far reality given the present circumstance. With a heavy sigh, he walked on to his apartment, feet wet with the rain, his clothes a reservoir of water. Again, throughout his journey to his place, there was only but a sense of nothingness. No fears, sadness, joy or tears. Just plain, nothing. The uncanny comfort it provided was such solace, for he didn’t want his mind active and racing through his memories like flipping the pages of a novel. This was one novel he decided to stash away and stashed away it will remain.

He climbed up to his apartment, and slipped in, wetting his floor. He wasn’t in a mood to get ready for bed. He wasn’t in the mood for dry clothes. He shed his wet skin, his clothes forming a pile of soggy linen on his floor and climbs up into bed. Now the nothingness accompanied by the nakedness. The feel of warm and dry quilt against his bare skin reminded him of the loneliness. It reminded him of his loneliness every night without fail, without failing like the light bulb at the studio. The tag line flashed across his mind again. “Where the stories begin”. His story began, a year ago, under that very same sky he gazes upon, in view of the many sailors in the distance. But forget where and how the story begins. He knows he hasn’t seen the end yet. He knows that the story has it’s continuation, only now along an alternate parallel. He knows that even if the story did not provide with that happy ending he so desired, he knows the story is far from finished. He knows it will continue, until one day, he decides to ink the last full stop, the last punctuation to a story that will always be remembered. Until then, he wants to stay awake. He wants to breathe for as long as it takes now. He wants to relish in the beauty of days henceforth. For now, he knows that he has to wait, just to see...how the story ends.....