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"Is- Has someone found a …note or something?"
"No, only his diary. But judging by the last entry.."
Everything hurts. My soft, pliable flesh, the speck of my heart that is keeping me alive against all odds. Keeping me in business.
Employed to continue on with this meaningless grind.
There is no respite, not even in sleep. Dreams seem to be bent to provide the most unpleasant experience of the day. "Get with the program" they say, "we're screening nightmares this fine night".
They might be the only ones who actually talk with me, with the real person that's hiding under all the muck that makes my outer being.
It would be so easy if I just didn't have to exist at all. To not be the pet my parents would mourn.
I have seen it once, a scene of tragedy I don't ever wish to replay.
Still, we are all marching towards the big empty void. Some more quickly than others.
Once upon a time I believed in love. Not the existence of such, there is no denying its unrelenting presence in the world.
I believed that I am capable of letting someone near and keeping them close, without them running away screaming. Which has been, of course, utterly naïve of me. There has never been a chance of this sort of occurrence happening within my lifetime. It would be like being struck by lightning on a clear winter's day. Twice in a row.
It burned me through from head to the bottom of my toes, leaving scorch marks that will never leave.
The older I grow, the sicker I get, the smaller my ability to feel like I belong to the human species capable of love gets. It has not vanished completely though, not yet. It lingers, at the back of my loneliness, waiting to be reawakened. It gets cold down here, in the corner reserved for hideous losers. The price of warmth has climbed to unreachable heights lately, dooming us to live shivering.
But-
One tiniest touch can make a man grasp for hope. One note of unnecessary attention and there is not turning back from the ray of light illuminating the bleak future that used to be so certain before.
Even if it doesn't go anywhere. Between the usual routine of going to work to deal with unspeakable shit, not eating properly and overindulging in my addiction there hasn't been anything to indicate any sign of change. Just the one blurry memory keeping you from freezing to death, from time to time.
"Quite a poet, wasn't he."
"More like a dumbass loser, in my opinion."
~~~
It all came to be due to a seemingly inconsequential note.
Just the most unremarkable piece of paper lying on the floor near his desk. A secret message serving as a ticket out of this mud of self-loathing he's been stuck in for the past ten years or more. Calling him to a certain place to meet with a certain person.
It just happened to be the café he walked past a thousand times, never having the right excuse to enter. As if some karmic resonance made it so-
So unbearable to comprehend, impossible to experience.
And yet, so true .
A bundle of nerves and joy he was, made himself glow, even.
Life would finally become tolerable again, he was confident. The anticipation was turning him back into a proper human being. It felt like being young again, overflowing with a myriad of possibilities. Freshly conceived idea of a person in making-like. Not the disregarded piece of unused furniture the present had turned him into.
There he was sitting with fidgety hands and a heart wide open, cup of black in front of him. It smelled to him of desire, something dark and forbidden. Leaded with sin he's yet to commit. Only in his guiltiest of dreams did he come close to such a feeling, though it couldn't compare to the real thing. Not in the slightest.
Glad his seat facing the door so he wouldn't miss the arrival of his new future, he sucked in another portion of oxygen - being the only thing he was able to consume at that particular moment. Still, it wasn't good enough to nourish his brain to the point of correct function. Was it right for him to be here in the first place? Would the inevitable hurt be worth it all in the end? Was he only stuck in his daydream, far removed from reality?
Questions like these floated around inside his mind, clouding what was left of his sanity.
Then there was the dread.
The ever-present looming of doom, specifically abandonment, he was well aware.
There were attempts to dispel his pessimism of being left to wait here forever, the outcome more successful than not, to his vehement surprise.
Calm nature wasn't his close friend, though he did his best to make acquaintance with this part of him and maybe this time it finally decided to play nice.
Luckily enough he didn't have to suffer long.
Connor appeared in the entrance all smiling and perfect. Heading his way.
The blood pressure rising, heartbeat skyrocketing. His chest that of a cardiac arrest patient, his skin drowned in sweat.
But oh god so light. The ease that raised mountains covering him like a warm blanket on a lonely night. Finally, his time had arrived, illuminating everything around him, making it shine with hope .
He was so enchanted at that blissful juncture in time that he didn't notice how it didn't belong to him.
Not the warmth in the eyes, not the welcoming smile, not the affection radiating through his face.
Nothing.
It was like he never had been. Less than dust in an abandoned house.
Absolutely nothing.
It hit him like a cannonball the moment Connor went past his table further to the back of the establishment, not acknowledging his presence whatsoever. And of course he didn't. Of course he was waiting for a ghost of what was never to be.
With dread he turned around to see what had gone wrong, (because oh my god how could he had believed, so utterly stupid) only to see his least favourite person from the precinct being greeted by his supposed date.
Of course.
Gavin fucking Reed. On a date with the best person in the world.
"Fuck my life", he says as his heart stops beating again.