When you see or hear the word 'lullaby', the first thing that might come to your mind would be a mother's caring voice as she sings words of sweet assurance to her baby, a sort of blessing to promise a good night's sleep.
However, to him, the only source of lullaby that could fill up the void created by the absence of a parent, of a family and comfort him, was the sky. The sky that submitted to eternal changes of the world; varying from a cloudless day along with a bright sun to a cool evening with strange shaped and pillow-like clouds accompanied by the glowing setting sun.
It was also the same sky that sometimes cried along with him and shared his pain when tentacles of agony and anxiousness wrapped themselves around him.
And when he could no longer find any hope or will to live till the next day, it was the sky that silently showed him a theatre of stars that made him delectable.
No matter the place at which one lived, he firmly believed that if they looked high enough above them, they would surely be seeing the same sky stretching endlessly just like he did.
To him, this also showed the possibility that he was not the only one who found the sky as a precious friend. It let him believe that he was something more than just dust rolling through the streets.
But gone were those days when all he had in mind was survival. Gone were those days of trying to find scraps of food in garbage bins at the end of a dark alley, of how he hoped for a miracle and thanked the skies for always being there for him.
All he had in mind while finally being adopted to a middle income 'family' was to never spare a single moment of time he could afford and earn money for himself so that never again would he have to beg. So that he could be independent and try his best to not appear pitiful in front of others' prying eyes.
And then he really did start living as an average human being would.
After all that he had been through, he finally found the joy of no longer being starved, to read and write with his whole heart and to make what he thought would be real friends.
But mostly, he learned to live and dream of being loved.
And as time passed, he gradually grew.
He grew as healthy as a child with care would.
Although the more he grew, the more he started questioning how the real world worked, the world that was hidden with malicious people and darkness.
And the more he lived, the more he tried to replicate a typical human living normally among seven billion others. In the middle of pleasing others, he too tried to fulfil others' expectations of him.
But the most sorrowful thing was how he lived as though he was a replaceable doll.
In the midst of all this, he naturally forgot his precious lullaby.
When he had made enough money through odds and ends, his relatives told him to get married. And married he did.
His expectations of how he would live flew down to the ground as dying leaves would. He lived again trying to take care of his new responsibilities to the best of his abilities while simultaneously trying to not lose it.
He lived and he lived and he lived.
Until finally here he was at the same alley from all those years ago, divorced and penniless and unable to educate his children. What prompted him to make this sudden detour you might ask. Well, the answer was nothing else but the fact that he wished to go back to those days when he only had to deal with survival and not people.
What was all this for? Why am I back at the beginning?
His heart sank at the thought.
The man who once stood tall and proud due to his hard-earned money and beneficial friends all but crumbled down on the wet and cracked ground.
An exasperated sigh left his cracked lips. His tired eyes stung. Drowning in useless emotion was not what he wanted right at the moment and so under a habit that had long died down, he looked at the sky.
"Ah" His voice rang out through the stiff air of the empty alley.
The sky.
The dark sky was cloudless at this time of the night and a single star shined down at him, occasionally twinkling.
It was the same sky he used to know. The same sky which consoled him back then and even now, although he had ruthlessly abandoned it.
"What a terrible person I am ." He mumbled sadly.
He had forgotten how much gazing at the sky made him happy. Humans were such weird creatures, he thought, they only knew to appreciate the little things when they were down on their knees. Ungrateful was the perfect word for people like him.
He sighed, his mind working a thousand miles an hour.
What had changed so much in those few years that made him forget how much he loved the sky?
He had believed that no one ever really changed even when they got better with time. He really had. Then how did someone who started right at the bottom end up here, a place where he forgot the need to live however he pleased and be happy?
Maybe it was the drink that he had at the bar earlier that was travelling through his system, but he suddenly felt oddly peaceful but melancholic. Even the sky seemed to accept his unsaid apology that was swelling in his scarred heart.
Oh, how stupid he must have been to forget his only hope.
He pressed his eyes together and leaned against the wall, slumping but all the same smiling gratefully.
In the end, there was only one friend he would ever have.
His unusual friend.
His precious lullaby.
The sky.
I tried T-T I feel like I rammed too much in but it just felt like I needed to do it like this you know?
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Maze Of Me | Short Stories
Historia Corta[ON INDEFINITE HIATUS] How can someone who is lost in their maze of a mind be able to create wonderful things? The answer is quite simple. Sparks. Tiny sparks that blink into life from the embers of procrastination. Sparks that ignite the fire in...
