Gray Skies

The cocoon breaks

Chapter 21

The cocoon breaks

I walk to the bus stop again, raking the leaves with my feet to the side of the curvy road which is lined with naked trees now, once blooming with flowers and green leaves. It’s funny how seasons change and the leaves and flowers which define a tree withers away and drops where it would provide shade first. It’s the same dead leaves that give it is nutrients for it to bloom again in the new season and a new layer is formed around the trunk, the layer which defines its age. It’s been 6 months since she left me without a reason or has is been 7? I can’t remember. Mostly because I try not to think about it as much, I’ve kept busy, I’ve had people around me, even though they haven’t been the sole reason I’ve drifted ashore from my island, they certainly kept me afloat.

It’s the beginning of the New Year, new aspirations, resolutions, a time where everyone thinks they can make things right for their life time to come. I light a cigarette and wait for the bus to arrive, it’s never on time unless I’m late then it’s been and gone. It’s suppose to be the coldest winter ever recorded this season and that’s evident from the thick white fog that covers the road, the light from the street lamps give it that eerie glow, the air still and moist, temperatures so low I can’t feel the skin on my cheeks, its feels sharp and exposed, I can’t tell the difference between each puff of my cigarette and the condensation from my mouth every time I breath out. It reminds me of the New Years Eve party I went to. Celebrated in this rectangular shaped room in a restaurant, the partitioned back end over looking the street used for an internet café filled with computer monitors on tables pressed along side the walls, the rest of the room lined with square tables and chairs around them all pushed to the edges of the room to make space for the empty dance floor.

I remember the room being so Smokey that I couldn’t see the other end, not to mention it being scattered with people, the dark wooden floor covered in sticky patches of dried up cocktails of juice and alcohol, a carpet of cigarette butts and plastic cups, paper plates and confetti from those noisy party poppers. I ostracized myself in the corner, even though it was the most people I had around me in months, it was one of the loneliest I had felt in months. Everyone in the room had someone to hold, whilst I had a drunk with bad breath and dribble down his maroon top passed out next to me, but knowing that I was with those who I have been with for several years of my life, those who wouldn’t just leave me at a whim made me feel more secure. The guy passed out next to me will wake up in a few hours and after a couple hundred cups of coffee and some alka-seltzers, will recognize me and talk to me, joke about the night before.

I get on the bus and take the seat right at the back on the left hand side, next to the condensed window and the floor heater, it’s my usual spot. My hands under my thighs, staring outside, my head gently pressing against the cold window, its starts to get brighter and the fogs clearing up. I can hear the birds chirping occasionally as the bus stops to pick up passengers and the noise of the diesel engine pipes down for a short moment.

A smile breaks out looking back at the time when I locked myself away from the surroundings, only letting the sun touch my skin, walking the same route everyday and not a step further from my work desk to my bedroom, the only words coming out of me were to tell the bus driver what kind of ticket I wanted for that morning. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to do, but had I not been in that frame of mind, would I have reached this stage in my life? Maybe it was my way of grieving for my loss, the natural route for me to become a stronger person, maybe it was God’s way of allowing me to realise for myself that life has so much more to it then trivial losses, how there is life after love, how it’s him that I should turn to when things go wrong, how everything that happens is for a reason, that to sort my life out and get closer to the things that matter in life, family, career, true happiness, I needed that push, when gray skies are there its just a matter of hard rain, thunder and time before the sun rips through them and the infinite blue sky can be seen again. How the best thing that could have happened to me was her leaving me.