THE cliff he stood near was much like a siren, tempting to draw him to the edge of safety.
He withheld himself, with the only willpower he had left, staring out at the water below from five feet back.
He had never been in that water, but he feared, one day, his own body would push him into it as he latched back at his own sanity which was the first to let him go.
But he had always imagined what it was like to fly. He knew that, on the enviable day, he would know, as he plummeted to his final safehouse.
The air would rush through his hair, caressing his cheeks, reaching around his arms.
For those few seconds in the air, he would know. He would know why birds always pushed past the wind. He would know why they sang.
He would understand happiness as his body hit the water at murderous speeds.
His own thoughts slowly drowned out as he tapped his fingers on the rocks as if they were individual keys of a piano.
The ebony, the ivory.
But it was just sediment. It was indestructible, in essence. If it were broken, it would still be a mass of sorts.
Eli, however, if he were to break, would be nothing.
Nothing but a vague memory to few.
YOU ARE READING
looking too closely | late 2018
Short Storyin which a boy begged for solace and the other bled for happiness. * cover by the brilliant @CHALKNCHEESE-
