Someone's Someone

Someone's Someone - Chapter Thirteen

Danny....

I don't know how much more of this I can take. I hurt. Even through the bone-numbing cold, I hurt. It hurts to move. To breathe. To think.

If this cold doesn't kill me first, then maybe my injuries might.

The shelter staff wanted me to hang around to get some medical attention last night, but after being assaulted just before the outreach team took me to that emergency shelter, and to then get into some stupid altercation with some bloke over which bed I was going to sleep on, I ended up leaving and collapsing in yet another bleak doorway somewhere. Maybe I walked, because I knew the risks? Living rough, is more than I can take now. Maybe it's time for me to just give up? Last night, was my breaking point. I no longer have the strength to fight back. I tried fighting back when those three blokes started on me. I tried to stop them from kicking me when I was trying to just stay warm. I tried getting up, when I was already so emotionally down. But the dismal cold had weakened me. I frailly fought back against their kicks and their punches, and painfully lost. Now, I'm just wanting to sink beneath the sea of sorrow that is pulling me dangerously under. My life means nothing anymore. It was because of me that I started having to live on the streets, so it should be me who ends my having to live on the streets. Enough is enough. Shivering and aching all over, I listlessly rest my head on the cushions and close my sore and painful eyes. This is where I give in. Give in to the cold. Give in to my numb existence. I can't do this anymore. I can't keep existing the way that I am. I am ready for it to end. I am ready to fall asleep and to never wake up again. As my head sinks deeper against the soft material, I think how it's the only thing that's giving me some form of bitter comfort right now. A comfort that was given to me by a comforting soul. A comforting soul who was nothing but sweet to me. With my eyes closed, Henna's smile settles just beneath my aching eyelids. I'm imagining how that smile of hers lit up my miserable life. Even for a brief time, she lit it up. Then I remember how I treated her. How I was the one to extinguish that sweet smile of hers from my miserable life. Growing increasingly more restless, I open my exhausted and irritated eyes. I stare at the cushion. I stare at it for quite some time. At the cushion that she gave me. Staring at it harder, I remember how kind Henna had been. I remember how she gave money to the café owner, so that I could go there to have something to eat and to drink. And maybe if I have something to eat and to drink, I'll feel stronger?

Maybe strong enough, to survive another day?

The café will be warm, too. And god, I need some warmth. Painfully, I slowly sit up. Looking at the cushions, I carefully put them back into my backpack; followed by my sleeping bag. It's going to hurt like hell to walk, but I'm going to walk to that café if it's the last thing I do. Even when Henna isn't with me, her kindness is continuing to help me. Even though I hurt her feelings, her kindness continues to guide me through another day. Through a day, that I believed might have been my last.