Silhouette

It was a dark, foggy night. It was the middle of winter, and the frigid air was brutal in it’s stillness. The inky sky spanned overhead, thick black clouds billowing and blotting out the moon.

He walked along the edge of the road, where a thick fog was swirling. His shoes clicked on the asphalt and the sound echoed in the silent night. His breath misted in front of his brown eyes. He remembered when he was a young boy, he would look for figures in the fog. He would imagine shapes and faces looming out. It used to frighten him, yet it held a mystery that he found tantalising. But now, he himself was one, an outline against the cloudy white blanket of the mist that surrounded him.

He walked forth, assaulted by the cold air and the swathing fog. But beneath the tousled brown hair that lay in a wavy mess on his forehead, his chocolatey eyes brimmed with tears. His jaw was clenched, desperate to hold in his feelings. His lip quivered slightly, not from the cold, but from the effort it took to bottle it all in.

His fingers grew numb and he couldn’t feel his nose anymore. He savoured the feeling. He wanted not to feel. He yearned not to feel. Because to feel was to hurt. And he had had enough hurt to last him forever. After every problem that came his way, he convinced himself that it was the last. He told himself that there would be no more. But then before he could even recover from the first blow, it struck again. Each strike stronger and greater than the last. The pain kept piling up.

He walked on in the fog, which was so dense that he could see nothing in front of him. All he could see was the pulsating wall of smoky haze and the street lamps that stood like sentinels, their light barely breaking through the fog to create a faint unnoticeable glow.

He willed for the fog to consume him, to swallow him inside it so he wouldn’t have to return to reality. He wanted to bury himself in this cocoon away from it all. He wanted to just…end. To stop existing. Living was painful. Death was too, apparently. Who knew?

And he thought of all that he had lost. Of all that he was losing. Of everything that was slowly slipping out of his grasp, being snatched away by the vicissitudes of the mirthless Fates.  He thought of the oncology report sitting in his apartment. He thought of the scholarship that he was about to lose. And he felt the weight of his worries pressing against him, crushing him until he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

The tear slid down his cheek and into his mouth. The saltiness felt so familiar. His head was pounding, he felt it throbbing and each throb sent a spasm of pain through him. He could feel a faint ticking in the back of his brain. He felt it ready to explode. Because he kept it all in, he didn’t vent. It kept on building and building.

And now, alone in the middle of a deserted road in some part of the city, he knelt down amidst the swirling gloom and let it all out. He let the walls break. He let it all flood. He felt the tears pouring out. He felt the emotions breaking free of their shackles, tearing out of his body.

Suddenly, he felt the world brighten. He looked up to see lights piercing out of the draping fog.

This is what peace what must feel like.

This must be what closure is.

He squinted his eyes. The light was blinding.

In the fog, kneeling in the middle of the road, he looked like some fallen angel bowed down in prayer. Like some ethereal apparition, the halo of swirling light.

He closed his eyes. The light made him into a silhouette. He was a figure in the fog.

The car couldn’t stop in time.

The driver didn’t see him till it was too late.

Why is there so much noise?

The angels are screaming.

Why is there so much pain?

Why is there no peace?

I can’t take it any more. This was supposed to be my closure. 

The pain is fading. Is this the end?

I can’t feel any more.

Is this heave-