Work Text:
The city never looked so grey before, never looked so monochromatic. Frost built up on the small window panes of a small flat, white fractals decorating the bare windows. Blurring out the neglected interior like a censor to hide behind from prying eyes. Hide the clutter caused from grief— he didn’t need the judgmental stares. He didn’t need to have condescending people pick at his life. Stripping him of everything but shame. Years had crawled by, the seconds stretching into hours, the hours stretching into days, the days into weeks. The colours faded away, once a world of colour, lights and bustling people, now an empty, monochromatic ghost of a town.
Time is a fickle thing. Moments of happiness and love end like a snap of one’s fingers. To live a life filled with happiness is to have a short life. A life without any happiness is long, long and cold. Stuck in a cycle of stillness and quietness, the silence never truly being peace. Waking up is a miracle, eating is a gift, sleep is a blessing. When one is so lost in this harsh world, sometimes it is hard to do something simple as going about one’s day, pushing through the week seems daunting, what is there to care about? Finding one’s way back is harder than spiraling into the unknown and getting lost. Time only serves as a constant reminder of our pain and suffering.
A harsh gust of wind rattled the windows, the only noise that broke the dead silence. Cold air seeped through the thin crack at the bottom of the window and the curtains fluttered hypnotisingly. Bleak light filtered through the dark, grey curtains, highlighting all the clothes and books that were strewn across the floor, and across the tables. A figure shrouded in a frayed blanket, unmoving and pale—yet still alive. Puffs of white air expelled from his mouth with every exhale, a steady rhythm like the beat of his heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He sat up slowly, the blanket falling down onto his dirty knees. It had been days since he last showered, the water had been so cold that he didn’t want to go back in. The faucet had had many malfunctions, and no longer let out hot water. How he had longed for the steaming hot water, now unfamiliar, now denied. The water was cold, just like everything else. Without her, how else would this place be warm? He would have to find the local mechanic and call in to help fix the shower; but his cell phone was dead, left turned on for too long and forgotten, lying on the small table by the door. The air was still, dust had settled on the ground and on the furniture, left undisturbed. The concept of movement was foreign, the dust accumulating in the corners and on the skirting boards.
Patter. Patter. Patter.
The sky darkened with tempestuous clouds, hiding the sun from view, dimming the city. It always starts slowly, the drops of rain. Cold, thin, stinging drops of rain fall down, slow at first. The stone pavement littered with dark dots of water, getting darker and darker until a thin sheet of water covered the streets. Slow at first, the rain always speeds up, becoming heavier and louder as the rain hammers against the windows. Outside was dark, water droplets trickling down the panel, more and more rain pattering against the glass. A strange beauty, rain. The city looks so unusually bare, no civilians in sight, wandering around in this weather. A haunting quietness took over the once noise ridden streets, an uncanny peace after a busy day.
Nonetheless, the occasional bus rolled by, the iconic red paint contrasting to the grey pavement and roads, stopping at the nearby bus stop. He could just make out the interior of the bus, the seats empty with nobody inside, nobody boarded the bus too. Just a daily routine of stopping at each bus stop. One man, or maybe it was a woman, persevering in the cold rain, leading the bus around the silent, ghost of a town. White condensation gathered on the window pane as the man exhaled, blocking the bus from sight.
He wiped the condensation away, and stumbled away; his right leg tingling with a feeling of paresthesia and very, very uncomfortable. Stiff from the hard ground he slept on, with only a folded blanket serving as a mattress and from sitting on his leg for the majority of the time. The floorboards were chipped at the edges, the grooves worn down from many years of bare feet treading across, or slippers shuffling around. The thin, laddered socks slid down his shins, loosely sitting at the base of his ankles despite constantly pulling them up. Goosebumps covered his skin, though he should have been used to the cold by now, after lying on the frigid floor for hours.
***
He slumped on the bed, a cloud of undisturbed dust billowing up in a thick cloud.
Better get the dustpan, he thought with an enervated sigh.
Getting up, he found the dustpan, his slender hands gripping the handle as he bent down and swept the dust. Gathering the small specks of dust; small build up of dead skin cells, frayed fibres and hair, he looked at the dustpan that was now weighed down by the collected dust. Silence and stillness would only let the dust settle, just like how sadness had slumped into his apartment and grabbed ahold of everything with its cold, spindly claws. Nothing escapes it, nothing can.
The dust slid down the plastic pan and landed in the plastic bin with a quiet thud, the bed free of dirt. Empty again, like before. He grabbed the corners of the blanket and beat the cloth, removing any hidden dust. Each beat punctuated the silence until he had finished, the blanket fell on the bed with an ungraceful thud as he let the fabric go. The mattress dipped as one knee rested against it and then two knees rested against it, until he was lying face-down on his bed, his chest rising and falling with every shallow breath he took.
The corners of the room were dark, a looming darkness eating away at the near empty room, making it smaller and smaller. Dust still lingered at the skirting boards, though not as much as before. The chill receded, settling onto the wooden floorboards that splintered at the sides—he would have to find a professional to sand them down. It was not as bad as before, when he had almost starved himself; his body becoming thin and frail—he was not a movie character when their body was always in shape even if they neglected it. His depression was obvious from the dark rings under his eyes, to the thin, frayed shirts he wore. A warm soul teared into two, decaying in the hands of time.
Spring was coming even if he didn’t know it, buds protruding from the melting blanket of icy snow. A new season.