He
glares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, scrutinizing the complexion
that has only begun to clear up recently, still riddled with scars that testify
to years of bursting pimples with dirty nails.
His
head falls.
Dry
hands clasp his face and finger tips press into his temples, and these units of
unreliable hands try to till some fertile effort into his skull, but fail. They merely drag from his forehead, over his
eye sockets, to his chin, leaving a red impression in their tracks.
His
head rises.
He
scrapes his eyes to where his hands began and examines a freshly shaved scalp,
which reveals only an awkwardly shaped head.
The purpose of shaving it was to make way for change, but all it did was
remind him of what he is stuck with.
His
head falls.
A
congested nose points right to stale towels, left to a door open to an unkempt
bedroom, right to greasy blinds that block the sun, left to the front door through
which he should emerge into the world, but he is hopelessly plastered to cold
linoleum tiles. Sniffles.
His
head rises.
His
eyes meet his own. He leans in as though
to better understand them.
Fruitless. There is only a void
in each, neither casting a glimmer from their depths. He looks deeper. Flat blue irises contract. Pupils dilate. Voids expand.
He plummets.
His
head remains.
He
falls for miles, eons. Estranged from
reality, further distracted from where he should be and what he is expected to
do. No matter. In this moment he is a traveler of time and
space, and he chooses his path, his destination. He can worry about lost time later, like
always.
His
head remains.
All he can see is grey. All he can feel is cold mist saturating his skin
and an even colder wind embedding the liquid shrapnel into his flesh. He
listens in the distance for something else, but can only hear the howl of the
wind taunting him. He walks.
His
head remains.
Up ahead the fog assumes a lighter
tint. No longer opaque, but only
slightly translucent. He walks
further. There is certainly light up
ahead. There is an escape. His feet gain speed. He begins to run. Brighter.
Brighter still. The fog is behind
him.
His head remains.
He stares out at the expanse in
front of him. A green valley stretches
for miles, surrounded by towering mountains that continue beyond the
horizon. Everything showered in the
warmth of the sun. Everything alive and
with purpose.
His head remains.
He
shouts into the open air and smiles as his cry soars without resistance. Such sustenance. It echoes a dozen fold, each reverberation
coming back to greet him. Coming back to kiss his ears, but he recognizes the
voice. Thunder sounds. He falls.
His
head shakes violently.
The
world shrinks. The expanse narrows. He sees only himself, judging himself. Stuck in the here and now but not sure what
to do about it. So much to catch up on
but not sure where to begin. So eager to
live, but not sure how to move forward.
His
head falls. His head remains.
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