Grey

I wrote this short story, "Grey", on July 9, 2016.

~Grey~

By: Paige Taylor

Silence is inevitable. Six feet under all their words and the hurt, I finally lay peacefully. Our distant dreams were as loud and as bothersome as a demon screaming in my ears as if I could hear. As if I could hear anything besides the weeping wagers I had placed on my soul in exchange for a hand worth holding and a heart worth breaking. But all just seemed to be lost. Deep in the depths of my confined heart, I knew it would never last. He was everything I could have ever dreamt and more. But I was just all too hollow and much too broken to speak, to say the words that had always needed to be said, that “without him, I was better off dead.”

Depression transitioned its way into my mind leaving me thoughtless and torn. I begged and pleaded with the monster in my mind that if I could just get through this, I would somehow find a way to make everything okay again. But even I knew that these were just empty promises. Somehow every word I had ever spoken became just a mere design of a barrier placed upon wallpaper and torn down just as fast. Our entire relationship was spread across a paper sheet, and when he clenched his fist, I knew that we had crumbled. What we had been, what we once were, it was never going to be perfect again. As I looked out the window and faced the shadows, the black figures danced upon my window sill and though I could not hear a single thing, they all seemed to be singing and cheering happily as though there were still a glimmer of beauty in this dead end world. That is, when I noticed that these were not the only figures enjoying the wretchedness of life. There was another standing in solitude by an old willow tree. This figure was all gray and stood still as stone. Just when I was beginning to think that it was yet another figment of my imagination, it reached out its hand to me and for a moment, I swear I had even seen it blink. I slowly reached out my hand and pressed it against the window. The figure looked at me with sad, sorrowful eyes and just when I thought this image could not get any more morbid, the figure’s skin began to droop. Its eyes began to turn into a dark shade of black, and they began to melt right out of the socket. I jerked my hand away with a start and the entire window turned black. I could no longer see what was on the other side. No sooner then I took a step back, the entire glass plate shattered. I was hit with shards of painful regrets of loss and sorrow; left with nothing but the broken pieces of what was once my window.

Rain lashed my face like icy tears, and I sank to the floor. My mouth widened into a screaming O, but no noise could crawl from my strangled throat. I was drowning in those tiny raindrops, unable to breathe, unable to make a sound. I existed there for several lifetimes, until I forgot my purpose, my beliefs, and even my name. My depression was a state of limbo more painful than life and more permanent than death. The rest of my days were spent as a recluse, nothing to gain and nothing left to lose. Curled up in a ball on my own basement floor, singing in sorrow and screaming in solitude; I was in constant agony for the long lasting tomorrow. I could die here today without one last goodbye; I could leave here tonight and all would know why. Why? What good would it do? My body could lie six feet under with you, but my soul will be burning, while yours will be smiling. And as I lay dying, his is the only voice that I hear, the only one that is crying. If I were to fall apart, for better or for worse, tell me that no one else would care and the light will soon rid me of this curse.

I could feel my heartache from the past as if it were happening in the present. A bottom of a bottle, so shallow, so empty. The soft spot that was once in my heart, is now gone completely. I am counting my pills in two’s and in three’s, for I have yet to find a friend as great as these. Or so I thought. But now my sorrow, is all that I brought. For this drunkenness brings nothing but emptiness, and an overdose will only leave me in a state of comatose. A high only gives me a mere excuse to remain at an all-time low. Just like the most beautiful angel, who had fallen down below.

Then suddenly it came to my realization, that diamonds do in fact come from coal. How is it that something so beautiful can erupt from something so dull? Could it be that the most damaged of minds can tell the most beautiful of stories? Or could it be that a broken heart can in fact mend all that is lost?

Oh how I must loathe these winter months, for my mind seems to continuously wander. These thoughts of terror and dread, are all that I seem to ponder. I patiently wait for moments of terrorizing silence, so that my desolate screams may be heard and my voice alone will be made to suffer alone in agonizing silence. Soon it will be true, that all of my whispers will thus fade to echoes in destitute intervals, daunted by whom or rather what, is humanly immortal.