Thursday, September 9, 2010

Boy and the Ghost

The streets are cold, and his fingers are numb; the poor little boy, locked out in the perpetual winter. They turn their backs and pretend that they don't see, but they see, they know he stands there in the frost, staring at them with doleful eyes; they know he wants to come in.

They call him the "Unnatural Child", the lost boy, the one without a home. It's not his fault that he must wander; she took his heart from him, she stole the warmth from his home. He does not want to return there, for fear that he might see her imprint lingering, that he might still smell her fragrance, that he might hear the cadence of her whispers. He can't face his ghost - the girl who held his heart.

He never imagined that he would suffer from a broken heart, and yet, he could feel the pieces of it scattered within him, piercing his lungs, his stomach, his throat, causing tears to spring to his eyes. It only hurt more when he caught a glimpse of her shadow, stalking the streets he wandered through, and for a moment, his ghost becomes solidified, a real person. He glances away, afraid to meet her gaze if she looks at him; he doesn't want to see his hurt reflected in her eyes, and yet he hopes that she hurts, instead of feeling indifferent.

Soon the seasons will change, winter banished into the oblivion of another year, spring taking its place, and then too passing, melting into the summer heat. With the coming of the summer, he would have left those cold streets, leaving her behind, leaving the cold, leaving all the people who couldn't care less. And while he hopes for a better future, he cannot comprehend life without her in it; it seems so pointless.

He cannot deny that there is a tug at his heartstrings when he looks at her for but a second, he cannot say that edges of the hole where she used to sit don't graze him. He misses her, he realises, and instantly wishes with all the pieces of his shattered heart that he was in her arms again. Alas, he knows it cannot be. He realises now, too late, that he loved her, that he had unknowingly entrusted his heart to her; her absence made him grow fonder. But she wants nothing to do with him anymore; she had given him chances, he gambled with them all, he lost them. He's broke. It hurts her like it hurts him, but she is steadfast in her feelings, and resolutely avoids him. He pretends that it doesn't matter, but he returns to that empty, cold house, and finding the darkest corner, draws himself into himself, and weeps.

He woke on the morrow, feelings wavering; there was a faltering determination to stop loving her. How was he ever to find another if he could not let go of her? But she passes too close, her eyes dart to him from beneath their eyelashes, he mumbles a few soft words, she moves on. The war within him is ignited again. Reason screams at him to pull himself together, reassemble what is broken and march forward to another day, leaving behind all traces of her. But the Heart, it whispers softly, its lilting voice cutting through the tormented anguish of Reason, reminding him that he still loves her, that even though he couldn't look past the flaws when she was with him, that he still loves her. It tells of how he took forever to fall for her, but as surely as the day follows night, he did, and it reminds him of the happiness he felt when she held him, the contentment, the quiet bliss. Reason cuts in to harshly remind him about the bad times, the uncertainty, the lies, the hurt, the things he didn't like about her, but the Heart's voice speaks clearer still, the chime of a crystal amid the din of a riot.

He wants to side with Reason, but knows the Heart is truer still. He just wanted things to go back to how they were, where she wasn't trying to force herself into a role she didn't fit, and he had to fight to keep up with a person he felt he didn't know anymore, and hated because he knew that she was different deep within.

He finds that he didn't hate her, he hated what she made him think he'd become, he hated the way he went from feeling loved to feeling worthless, all because of where her attention was directed. He hated that he didn't know how he felt most of the time, because she kept changing who she seemed to be. He got lost trying to follow the different personas. He got sick of trying to show her that she didn't need to be those other people, but could be who he knew her to be. He hates how his happiness went from being self created to being entirely dependent on her.

He is alone in those streets, wondering why on earth he is still there. Wondering why he can't pull himself away. He knows the answer of course, but wishes that he didn't. He hopes the summer will arrive quicker, and yet dreads it all the same. He sees her ghost again, crashing into his dreams, walking through his life, taking his life, slowly, by taking away his feelings, because he was stupid enough to give her his heart.

He feels alone, and his fingers are numb from the cold. Suddenly, out of the darkness, a warm hand takes his; it is not her, but someone different. For the first time in eons, he smiles, a heartfelt smile. And he begins to think that perhaps he fell for the wrong person after all.

2 comments:

  1. Mmm.. good ending. Always the light at the end of the tunnel :) Hehehehe, ily.

    xx

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  2. Glad you liked it!
    Of course there's a light at the end of the tunnel, otherwise it's not a tunnel, it's a dead end.

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