novels. { on hold }

iv: smoke

"ezra?"

a soft knock sounded from the other side of the door. ezra squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could and rolled over to face the scratched eggshell paint of the wall.

"ezra, please open the door."

ezra clamped his jaw and raised his hands to cover his ears. everything was too loud.

"at least come out and eat some dinner," declan said softly. he sounded so sad, so dejected, that ezra almost thought about crawling out from under his duvet and eating some soup just to make dec smile again. but doing so seemed as daunting as climbing mount everest, so submerged in scratchy sheets he stayed.

he exhaled when he heard declan's retreating footsteps. ezra hated himself for dimming the brightness that was dec, but he couldn't help it. on days like these, gravity seemed stronger, like it was pulling him under the fragile ground on which he stood.

after a while the silence became too loud, so ezra reached a hand over the edge of his bed and felt the ground blindly for his notebook. the worn spine of the canvas book was rough against his fingers as he yanked the cap off of the attached pen with his teeth.

why are meaningless materials prioritized over every other lovely thing? they may hold weight in this tangible world, but in our souls, they matter not with the rare exception of sentimentality. in the end everyone cares more about their cars than they do about polluted streams and the extinction of polar bears. they pay more attention to their technology than they do to the stars, which is a shame, because one day the air may be so thick with toxic fumes that the radiant lights cannot be seen. they trample flowers with their designer sneakers and crush wild blossoms with the burning rubber of tires. they do not care about rising ocean levels as long as they have their televisions. the distance that technology creates between the fortunate individuals and the unfortunate makes flooding and heat waves and the loss of entire species seem as if it will never affect them. it will. or it will affect their children. and soon enough there will be even more people in need of help, help that they do not offer to those in need even now. they have become too comfortable to risk anything. they are disgustingly self-centered and greedy. after all, as long as their pockets are overflowing with that mighty money, what could be wrong in the world?

when was the last time they even looked up at the sky?

ezra took a deep breath and raised the pen from the yellowed paper. his chest felt a little lighter now. but sadly, no matter how many vehement proclamations he forged in this little book, the world would not change. people would likely never grasp at the stars with dreaming minds again, and the path to destruction was paved too far to be reversed. oblivion was inevitable.

so why did it bother him so much?

ezra decided that he hated that word, oblivion, and he scrawled it on an empty page angrily before ripping the sheet from its binding. he grabbed the tiny box of matches he kept in his bedside table and struck one, holding the sunset-colored flame up to the paper and watching as the fire caught. ezra held onto the piece of paper as long as he could, watching the edges turn black and curl in before falling to ash. when the fire neared his fingers he dropped the slip into the metal wastebasket that sat next to his bed and slumped back into the pile of covers he was buried in.

he closed his eyes and breathed in the smoke.

a/n: this obviously comes from a place of one of my pain political frustrations sorry