ᴀᴅ ᴍᴇʟɪᴏʀᴀ ~ ᴅᴘꜱ (ꜱᴛᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴍᴇᴇᴋꜱ)

26 - ripples

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you becomes fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens...

-Stanza 1, "For Grief"
by John O'Donohue

-

(tw for direct and indirect mentions of suicide for pretty much the rest of the story.)

The same sunlight filtered through my window the following morning, just as it had the day before. Frost coated the world beyond room 3E's walls, crunching beneath the feet of pedestrians, exactly as it had the day before. It was more than likely that someone who passed did a double-take past my building, peering up but not quite meeting the sky's gaze. They may have glanced at my floor, blissfully unaware of anything about me and unfazed by that ignorance. The same sun might have strained their eyes too much for more than a quick glance before returning them on their way, nestled back into their spot in the ongoing march of time.

Meanwhile, I fell out of step.

Hours ticked by as I laid in my bed, unmoving and unwilling to find reason to.  The air grew stale without the bustle of life revitalizing it, eventually grasping onto my abundant grief instead. The sheets on my bed were the most dynamic thing in the room. Sometimes they covered me, tethering me to the world and all it had to violently steal away. Sometimes they didn't; instead, they sat crumpled at the foot of my mattress as I calmed down from whatever sent me thrashing. A dream, a memory, a blur, a realization...

A nightmare.

God, the nightmares. Lifetimes worth of pain and regret stuffed into a few minutes of prolonged terror. Familiar faces and places corrupted into contorted reminders of what lay beyond my unconscious mind. It was the same thing, over and over, over and over, yet uniquely harrowing each time.

The play. The car. The crown. The discovery. On repeat. Again. Again. Again.

I don't remember getting back to my bed after the news. I just... was. Sleep and solace constantly escaped me as I jolted awake hour after hour, though reality wasn't much better than whatever haunted my slumber.

The play. The car. Neil. His face. It's wrong. It's wrong, but I can't exactly articulate why. His hand. The subtle glint of heavy metal under his father's desk lamp.

The gun.

I wake violently from my quasi-slumber, knocking my sheet entirely off the bed. The slight chill of the room battles the heat of my skin, sending a shiver down my spine. I half-heartedly reach for the sheet from my fetal position. It's a few inches out of reach, but if I just scoot to the right...

Hell, what's the point?

What's to stop the Earth from opening up beneath this building and swallowing it whole, sheet and all? My effort would be worthless. It would all be worthless. It feels like it already is.

What's the point of knowing someone if it's just going to eventually cause your grief? Is that a risk that we, as a whole, inherently take on the second we exchange introductions? Sounds like a shitty deal to me.

I finally open my eyes, uninterested in what the world has to offer me, and find Amy's bed empty. I'm not expecting to see her anytime soon. I'm okay with that, though. She's going through a lot and I don't want her to feel any obligation to take on my burden as well. We might be struggling under the same weight, but that doesn't mean we have to share it. I've never been a very vulnerable person, anyway.

I'll be okay, I think. Eventually. I'm not that- sorry. I wasn't that close with Neil, in all honesty. We were familiar by proximity. I know he was kind, funny, bright, and teeming with potential. I know he could have excelled in any field he chose. It's no wonder he loved acting; it was hard not to adore him, no matter who he played. Although the world only saw him in one role, it was clear to see how his personality shined through the character, making it uniquely... his. His smile was as infectious as his passion. I fear that he worried what would grow in its absence. Filling the space with artificial happiness didn't negate the problem, it simply shifted to void to within, eating away and away until... until...

God, Amy was right. It's hard to even say.

My stomach roars with hunger, groveling for me to eat. I simply hug my legs tighter to my chest, compressing the grumble into a strained cry.

I don't feel like eating. I don't see a point to it. My body deserves to ache the same as my heart does. I want it to display the same hurt and despondency I feel on the inside so the world can see what it has done. A martyr to the cause of a young flame, snuffed too soon.

A light. A life. A student. A friend. An actor. A bullet.

And so here I lay, withering away and content with it, removed from the "synchronized" march of time as everyone else treks on. We're all headed towards our eventual fates; however, some of us reach it earlier than others. An abrupt and not-so-happy ending is enough to knock everyone in someone's sphere off track, even if just for a moment.

However, I think it's going to take more than a moment for me to cope with the loss of such a gleaming soul.

A light. A life. A friend. A tragedy, mirrored only by the works of Shakespeare himself.