No Light

There seems to be a theme in many stories that you don't turn around, don't look back, keep on walking. Especially near the ending, when the ends are being tied up and presented as neat little bows to the reader. It's the story's end after all, not a dress rehearsal. I want someone to walk away and then turn around, expecting to see me standing and watching, only to see I'm walking the opposite direction. Far away, each step, I go. They want to say a final finality. And just when they blink, or open their lips, suddenly I'm gone. Vanished.

But the sad truth is I don't believe that there is any place I could go to escape this. No place where I won't carry my stories with me. Often I am comfortable with that, sometimes I'd even go as far to say I was comforted by it. What made me, melded me, sculpted me, carried upon my shoulders. But that is not now.

I feel tired.

I feel haunted.

I feel frightened by happiness, and its side effects.


There is no love in the rain that falls from the skies today, when it used to be my favourite reminder.
Is there sun after the rain? Perhaps. But the thunder is more troublesome thereafter.

There are wisps of steam rising from houses and, watching I see, it throws itself so carelessly out into the wind. Like jumping onto moving carriages. All too quickly it has disappeared. Swallowed up into something greater. Ended.

But there is still a clinging hope. That won't let go.
Another truth? Some of the time, I let myself kind of wish it would. That honesty with myself, it stops me indulging it.