...and when the dawn was fading away, he shut his eyes. Manuel found out that his eyelids were treacherous little things choosing to crinkle and coerce themselves a victim to the unabating morning light.
He rolled on the soft grass, paying little heed to the mud and soil tainting his impeccable clothes. He buried his face into the crook of his arm and the earthy smell drifting from the damp soil seemed to give a welcoming impressing of cold and dark. There was no light.
"Will you wake up!" The exclamation was only part-rhetorical. Selina shook her brother's shoulder and he rolled over, slowly but steadily.
As soon as his eyes snapped open, the blinding light gushed to his head and he was given an acute headache.
He covered his face, his fingers pressing his eyelids shut against the light. He walked to his room and took a shower- the water was soothingly warm. He, then, dressed himself for school and the lights.
He was not scared of the lights, he told himself, he was just apprehensive. He didn't like the way they saw everything in him- as though baring him out to the world. He shook the thought out of his head as he wrote:
'Dear Manuel,
If it is you who is reading this, I don't like the lights. If this is not you, where are you? ...'
He mused to himself, 'Where are you?'
Then he wrote about the lights. Some people were afraid of the dark, Manuel was not. He thought that in the dark he could seek them while his friends hid away. He could also hide and his friends could never find him because what a hiding spot he had! Sometimes, he would wait and wait and his friends wouldn't come- so he would just scramble out from under the bed and turn on the lights- finding them all gone.
But soon enough, his mother would bring them in- ushering them into his company. And how he would turn off the lights and giggle and hide.
Manuel mused again,
'Where are you? Are you under the bed? I am sure you are!'
The solemn woman read it out and there was sudden, anxious movement as everyone jostled to the very spot.
As they looked down, they found that Manuel was all alone- all his friends were gone; he was curled up in a small ball his head facing away from the light and his breathing diminishing away- into the dark.
YOU ARE READING
Crumbling Visage
ContoA short story and abstract pieces collection. Visage is the barrier between self-expression and projecting behavior; a collection of intricate tales of love, loss and occasional thrillers that explore the different sides of humanity and what happens...
