Dark Gray (Harry Styles)

Chapter 1

        I feel the summer night surrounding me again as the cool remnants of spring fade away like a promise long forgotten. The air picks up in temperature and the thunderstorms roll away with season's passing. But me? I'm stuck in the same place I've always been, the same person I've always been. Doomed to remain in my same state of boredom and wonder of the future. Something that they don't tell you about life; it can move as slowly as the season's changing. And it can leave you constantly wanting more.

        Maybe that's what I'm hoping to find this summer; something more meaningful than sleeping until noon every day and wasting time on things that won't matter a year from now.

        Hands in my pockets, I drag my feet along the million year old sidewalk covered in cracks and bruises, waiting for someone to fix it. Everything needs some kind of fixing, even people. But this sidewalk has been neglected for as long as I can remember, and I doubt that will change anytime soon.

        Manson Street is rather boring, plain houses on either side, filled with darkness that was only broken by the streetlights outside. I know people are inside, I see them come and go every day as I sit outside on the porch writing a story that no one will ever read.

        But right now, they hide inside their beds while I walk alone down an abandoned sidewalk thinking about how darkness and light are always close but how they never seem to meet. A thought I often have when the sun is setting or when the streetlights reach out to darkened windows wishing to have entrance but always being rejected. Maybe I'm just weird.

        I'm not really sure what to think though when I look to the last house on this dead end road. Lights pour out from every crack and pane of glass, and for a moment it looks as if the house was on fire. I keep walking, eyes unmoving from the strange lights, and find myself even crossing the street to look closer.

        It's a huge victorian style house, a faded grey with dark blue shutters. It stands three stories tall and is the largest house on this road. A porch with a roof wraps around every side of the house and in the back I can see some sort of garden. Sometimes I wonder if it could be considered a mansion, and I question why it's found on a road as uninteresting as this one.

        I've seen this house a million times but for some reason, tonight with the all the lights on in this darkness, it seems like more than just a house. It seems like a story. One of those old books that you would find in an old library, with the vintage spines and the yellowing pages. It looks like it's hundreds of years old and as if it's been held but a countless number of hands. But in those tattered, decaying pages, theres is a sort of beauty to it.

        Maybe that's why I find myself walking towards the front door.

        The door looks vintage, made of wood with a huge mosaic looking glass window in the center of it. Its a dark grey with chipped paint along the edges and scratch marks all over. It's clear no one has tried to touch it up, but I can understand that. In a way, it looks more interesting with the marks that have probably come from a number of openings and closings. It only makes me wonder how many people have come in and out of this door over the years, the amount of memories and history that lies inside this dark grey chipped piece of wood.

        It's quiet, no noise coming from inside. No music, no talking, no sign of life. But unsure of where this sudden surge of bravery is coming from, I put my fisted hand up to the door and knock three times.

        At first there's no sign that anyone had heard my courageous knocking. But after a few seconds, I see a figure through the glass, a small grey shadow that got closer and closer, silently walking towards the door, with me on the other side. A complete stranger. It's at this moment that I realize just how idiotic it was of me to come here.