Thread: The Void [A Short Story]

I waited upon the East Balcony, watching for the sun to rise over the treetops that would make a new day. The air was warm and yet I felt the frigid awareness of Autumns chilly fingers ghosting over my skin. I felt as if I was holding my breath before disaster struck. But we both know that a catastrophe had already wrecked our eternities. Even with the fleeting thought that the sun marked a brand new day as if reborn from ash and starlight- that you were not here to share it with me. It was like a plague upon what normalcy we had provided ourselves and indulged in. It made me think of Annabel Lee and how she had died so soon but her lover had remained with her and soon followed in her footsteps. I am not such a person to lay by your side until Death would take me into his frozen and bony embrace, but I feel myself longing for it- not for death or for the end- but to be by your side again. As I watched, it seemed that the sun would be taking its time to rise up like a ship after a harsh wave tossed it. And so I waited. I clutched the papers of stories of poems of love that we shared, traded, and perhaps forgot. Never I but perhaps you. I devoured the words with eyes and voice, trying with a desperation to memorize them in such a short period of time. A wetness hit the pages and like raindrops the tears fell unchecked, blurring the scripture before me. I did not try to staunch the flow, but I tried to hold back any sound, muffling them with closed lips, dignity, and will-power. The wind teased the candle flames as if beckoning them onto the breeze as the darkness of night remained. Where was the sun?! That beautiful, deplorable, wretched, adoring sun that I craved? Would I have to live without it? Would I have to move through the darkness with a remembrance of what it was like when there was light in my shadowy world? I could not close my eyes for fear that the darkness would envelope me like the stillness of a coffin. I was not ready for the void that would devour me and yet you! You stepped towards it like a madman with drink in hand Or was it a knife?. Either way, the result of my mind and heart were in tandem empty and listless without focus or care. You cut me deeply with your decision as if to abandon me and your mortal coil like wistful thoughts left to the wayside for someone else to pick up. And yet I am here, on this balcony waiting for a sun that will not rise with dreamy thoughts of you and your words captured on paper and ink. I stroke them as if to stroke your face and feel your skin beneath my fingers. As if mere touch of these remnants can lead me back to your soul. Yet it is not here. It is not here just like you are not here and I am left alone in the stillness of the night like a crazed man who speaks of voices that do not exist. If I asked kindly enough would the wind carry your voice to me? A sigh escapes my frozen lips as I stare up into the darkness. The stars sparkle as if they laugh at me and my memories of a time when the stars did not laugh but instead shone with a mirth I could understand. Now I see only lifeless, cold, empty spots of light that do nothing to soften the ache in my breast or the memories of one such as you. They mock me now as the sun mocks me. When will this torment end? When will my invisible tormentor cease the suffering of my lonely, shattered heart? When I finally dissolve into the void? Or will it be when I give myself to my suffering and slowly fade? I receive no answer from the wind or the stars. There is only silence. A deep yet knowing silence that allows me to see the truth in why the sun will not rise and why the stars cease to mock me. I must be dreaming. Yes! I had to be or else the sun would have risen and relinquished me from my mental prison. Rising to my feet I screamed for the sun to rise, begging with my whole being for the sun to drift above the horizon and erase my horrible dream from memory and place me gracefully back into my bed. But it never came. I felt my legs slide out from under me, my knees hitting the balcony as tears streaked my dirty cheeks. The sun would not rise. It was then, in my epiphany, that you were the sun My beautiful sun that filled my existence with light and a meaning to move onward towards my death and life. So vibrant were you that when your skin touched mine it was like the suns rays were kissing us and granting us warmth and vitality. And when you spoke to me in the way that only we shared, it was like the sun decided to shine for just a few hours more. Just for us. My hands clutched sand and lifted it up, watching the cold wind sweep it out from my palms and away into the darkness. I did not reach for it. I did not try to hold the sand between my fingers as if I could keep it with me. The sun was gone. My light had vanished and like the sand, it would never return to my hands no matter how many times I tried to pick it up and hold it. It would always drift away to be stolen by elements I could not control. And so I remained on the balcony, hopelessly begging in silence for my sun to rise, knowing full well that it would never come to pass. Even when the wind chilled me and my knees began to ache like my stuttering heart, I did not move. Yet I knew that someday I would find the will and the strength, I just knew that I did not have it yet. And as the tears stained my face and hands, I wished with all my heart that the void would treat me kindly and that I would see my sun again for I was a lost soul looking for my mate, and if I could not have you, I prayed I would find another that would make me feel again.