Prosaic Friday: Blinking

Blinking

The sun was leaving his street too fast. The street was longing for the light just like his soul was. Even when direct afternoon light was penetrating into every corner of this place, everything seemed to him invariably miserable and grim. Well, sometimes you just can’t help the way you see things, right?

He left his sleeping place and went out to the street hoping to catch up with the last promise of today’s sun. As always, it promised to return tomorrow. Either scorching or almost invisible, the sun has for already almost 5 billion years been fulfilling its promise to return, and it was nice for him to know.

Speeding up and wading between the tightly-planted houses, like air he was gulping the last gleam of the day. There, ahead, there is still a little bit, he thought to himself, focusing his gaze at the end of what seemed an infinitely sad street. The sky was dipping itself into the arms of darkness yet it was bright. Out there, above, the swallows were circling and crying incessantly. They were flying low, he could hear them. The atmosphere was pressing the ground with all its body. It will rain, he thought. Something superhuman and unfathomably painful was in their cry. Something too animal, something too wild for a landed human. After all, every blackfly on account for every bird and its offspring, survival couldn’t make them not to cry.

Along the way he thought that he could stay in the flat and bid farewell to the sunset from the window, but then, that eight-foot room would swallow him in blackness much faster. A bridge was very close.  The destination he was eager for. He crossed the road and took his phone out to take a picture. The picture was nothing particularly different from the other 90, but it was one more day that was born, lived, and was dying right in front of his eyes. He will not remember this day, they all have long been mixed into one but let it be pixelated and saved elsewhere just in case. That's all. He reached the remains of light and was saved just like the picture in his phone.

The bridge was empty just as he was. No people, no cars, no motion. It was getting dark quickly, hastily. Street lanterns were proudly showing initiative in the urban décor. An ambulance raced past. Nothing will help this day, he thought, call the morgue. For him, the night wasn’t a part of the day; it was a totally different dimension, with its rules, traditions, and way of existence. In these circumstances, he had nothing to do at night, or more precisely, in the night. A cold north wind in mid-July, the smell of alcohol digesting welcomes you past every pub implanted into the row of houses, sickly-sweet perfumes, meaningless electronic cigarettes, and people dressed as mannequins for real? Now anger was filling his soul. People. People make the place, right? They're unconditionally buying cheap flirtation and even the crudest attention, they admire each other's primitive intelligence, and now he hears the shouts of encouragement to a guy who just broke a bottle of beer. These people are narrow, flat, and happy fools, and unbeknownst to him, the envy has eclipsed the anger. Now a single night's darkness was not enough for him and he hobbled back home, to the smallest and darkest room in the world.

Cold wind has weather-beaten his thin skin but he imagined this city on fire with all the colours of the rainbow and it was warming him. Night. Infamous night. Go away and give me back my day, was he crooning on the way back. Empty like entrance of the house, lonely elevator, he entered the flat and quietly made himself a cup of tea, in order not to wake the rest of the monsters in his head. Today there was enough of them.

The door of the room. Closed curtains. Squeezed wooden bed between two thin walls. They are all too unfriendly. He doesn’t care, he closes his eyes and the thought of a new day that brings new hopes lulls his heavy heart. Light will come and all will be brighter. Light will come.

His sleep is instant and deep, he barely sees dreams. They are deceptive though comforting. He is too tired of them.

The morning. He feels it with his eyes closed, but only when he opens them there is no light. Is the night not over? Or have I gone blind? But there is no panic, it does not frighten him, he sees the dark with open eyes and it feels good, it feels like light and it doesn’t matter if there is no more light, because he doesn’t need it anymore.

A little later he woke up again to find a lock of dark hair on his face. The hair that replaced the light and darkness, the hair which makes both equally deep and light. Day 91. 

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