Quietly

It came unexpected. Loudly bolting down the hallway, like a flash in a pan. Again, it had happened, again it would happen: One single splinter in oblivion, of pastimes and good times, sticking in his mind’s eye. Unfortunately for Jon, that was all it was. Another reverie of a life he’d long since forgotten, coming back to grab him once more. As the palpitations of thought subsided, he caught his breath. The thought of her was too much to bear. He swept a greasy lock of hair from his eyes to see clearer, but the world was getting darker. Darker and, perhaps quietly, he thought: better. For a man who knew he did not have long, he could certainly break his moribund coil to see hope in darker things. Perhaps it was because he was predestined to darkness. A brooding wish to fade in to the one thing he knew once his eyes were shut. “I’ve often stared back at it.” he had told his mother once. “I’ve wondered if it was a wall, something shucked between my eyes and their lids. But now I feel as though it is infinity. Out of such things, thoughts come, and out of thoughts, come the fantastical. It is the eye of the mind”. His mother had not sipped her tea their entire meeting that day. Instead, the wisps of steam has evaporated out of the polystyrene cup into the nothing, much as he was insinuating he eventually would. To his mother, his diatribe was little more than a dirge. They had said their goodbyes that day on souring terms, terms that would only grow more sour as their morbid waltz continued to its terminus. She had not been for some time, and Jon had been waiting for many years. Shuddering in this present hallway, Jon thought back to how his mother truly did not understand him. Perhaps, even hated him. He shook it off, for dwelling on those thoughts was not what caught him, not what shook his bones to stillness at this present time…it was the memory of the summer lights as they cascaded around the halls, filling them with light. Eleanor had been there. The beautiful girl that she was, had been there, plain as the day that bathed her in the warmest colours. Now, the dust and rust of his decaying, deflated lust for her had settled on the floors around him, and he had tread on it, every day since.

He regarded his way back to his bed with hands well suited to the task. It was getting darker by the minute, and soon, he would need to sleep. He felt the path in the deepness of the void, finding stairs to carry himself, and walls to guide his way. He turned on every light he could possibly find, to no avail. Whatever power was left, was gone. Long gone. All he could hear, was the sound of his footsteps rebounding off of the walls, such so was the length of the corridor, the echo’s refused to fade, or give him ample discretion as to his distance, but he found it. His room. He lifted a hand to the handle, and twisted it.

He heard a voice in the hall way. “Lights out Jon?”, “Yes” he replied “afraid so, its time”. “Let me get that for you”, the kindly hands reached out and flicked a switch. There was no point, not in Jon’s world. His world, remained darker still. He thanked them for their help, and found his bed. Jon had never been religious, he didn’t believe in praying, or in finding solace in empty words, they were as foreign to him as different tongues. Instead, he kept a vigil by his bedside. His own display of solidarity. He had lost many friends, Eric, Samuel, Collins…and even, eventually, Eleanor. He unbuttoned his shirt, notch by notch, feeling the rhythm of the buttons pop. He wriggled one arm free, and went for the other, his finger brushing over the rigid contours of raised flesh. A scar, one he had truly earnt with pride. It was this scar that stopped Eric from death the first time. It was this scar that started the darkness. The little boy from Portsmouth had faded before the very eyes of all who know him, into the man of the regiment he felt below his breast, stood in the darkness, and locked in perpetual slumber.

For ten minutes, he would stand shirtless, scars on display, repeating their names in his head. He could hear the other men and women in his ward, breathing, crying, at peace, or struggling to find it. Jon himself stood, eyes wide, rigid as a plank, in silence. Eric, Samuel, Collins, Eleanor. She had come back with him, to this place. She was the worst, he had felt the blast smash his body, and dislodge his head gear, but her mask never even made it over her mouth. The gas had torn her lungs apart. Although Jon’s world had gotten darker still, his vision gradually receding, he still saw her every day in the halls. He had seen her in that hall until all that was left was the dance of dust, sucking the colour from the morning as it floated. He had seen her still after, and after, until the darkness had failed to stop him seeing her. He finished his vigil with a salute, and removed the rest of his clothes. He lay his head down, his hair cascading down the sides of his pillow, and stared at the darkness in his eyes, as it stared back. He felt his lids slide over his corneas, and counted until he could count no more…he felt his stomach dip, his breath shorten. The darkness began to lift, decay like a pill in water. Against all logic, the world was becoming clearer, and his feet were lighter than ever. He lifted himself from his sleep and again, he stood where he had made his nightly vigil. There she stood. In the doorway. Eleanor, bathed in all the colours of the day. His head soothed, his tears filled this vision with tenderness and he took her hand. This time, he had stared through the darkness, and this time, he left with her.