Punctuation

There is a Reason.

I woke up from a dream of fire and metal-on-metal.
I'd call it a nightmare because I often relive those fantasies of my head, and they feel too painfully real to be unreal.
I could walk around and move my mouth, but nothing I said would reach their ears.
My life was on pause, but everything was still moving in motions beyond my control.
Suddenly, I could hear it. The sound of radios and sirens, the voices of people I loved, screaming followed by uncontrollable sobs.
They began overlapping into a relentless melody of terror, and what sounded like screeching.
It hurt my ear.
And my brain.
My eyes grew heavy and closed with the weight.
From behind my eyelids, I could see all of them being given the news. My very-own-personal movie theater with a big screen and loud speakers and rows and rows of viewing area. I am alone. Watching.
One-by-one, their faces falling and breaking with their hearts. One-by-one, dropping the phone, relinquishing themselves into their loved ones' arms.
One-by-one, forgetting how to understand the world.
Why should anyone have to endure through watching others mourn the loss of you?
Especially when you see yourself as someone missable. Not that you're useless or valueless or unloved. More so that you're just another imperfect human being breathing and singing and building and breaking and living.
I felt that was me. Someone people could live without.
Suddenly, I was sitting in an intolerably loud theater, darker than midnight except for the glaring screen reaching up into the nighttime sky flickering through the scenes.
My arms were pasted to the arm rests and my back nailed to the seat. I couldn't move or breathe. I had to watch.
First came my family members, the ones of blood relation. Hardly any bat an eye besides the closest to my home.
Next were my old school mates, suddenly all pretending to care about who I was. Suddenly all so desperate to love and share and embrace.
Finally, came the pieces of my life that were the family I had made all on my own.
I watched as they clutched their hearts, shocked enough to leave them silent and unbelieving. Shocked enough to leave them sitting motionless in front of their television with that faded smile that comes after you realize that the person on the other end of the phone sounds too hopeless for it to be a random call on a Sunday night.
He's in his chair, with the book I bought for him. The phone rings. She picks it up. You hear the first few words out of her mouth, they are happy.
How've you been? I haven't talked to you in fore..
Suddenly, her words aren't so happy. She grows lost in the information coming from the person on the other end of the phone. Her lips mouth words that never quite reach the room around them.
What? How? What happened?
He looks up from his book to see her face has grown pale as fresh snow, he closes the footrest on his recliner, the book falls to the floor—almost all in slow motion. She looks him dead in the eyes, in one fluid movement, he's on his feet and coming to face her, her eyes flitting away as she chews on her thumb nail. She can't breathe. You can tell.
The phone falls from her hand and he catches her as it clatters to the floor at their feet.
He holds her as she grips his shirt, still completely unknowing. He knows the worst has come. He knows there's something coming from her lips he will never forget. He knows his world is about to change forever.

Something happened.
Talk to me, what's going on? What happened?
There was an accident...there was an accident and you need to sit down.
He sits.
Why? Who was it? Are they okay?
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

At first he doesn't believe it, you can see it in the light that's still shining from deep in his eyes. But then his eyes grow heavy, the light fading into bitter darkness. He falls over himself, thrusts his face into his hands. I have never seen him cry before. Not like this.
This pain they were feeling, was something I never wanted to see from them again. My nightmares reminded me of all of the reasons why I drive safely from one destination to another.
This nightmare reminded me of all of the reasons in their flesh and bones why I want to keep on living.
There's the reason.