A Cloud in Heaven

Part 6

        Allen stood on the ledge of his apartment building starring out onto the city scape sprawled before him. The sun began to set behind the silhouetted sky scrapers and cast vibrant, deep colors into the atmosphere. The earth was darkening as the sun crept lower and lower behind the towers, as if it was dragging the colors of the city away so that the heavens could have their due. Allen eyes began to water at the sight. He never really appreciated the sky before. He never once stopped to savor the simplistic beauty of it all. Each color felt brand new to him. The deep crimsons and purples gave way to softer oranges and yellows. The intense fervor of the sun slowly receded into scattered starlight while glowing clouds melted into murky black. It was not the product of a drug induced fever dream nor a procedural generation to satisfy a captive soul. It was beautiful and real. Its splendor masked the pain the night would eventually bring. The manufactured splendor and artificial light hid the rampant vacancies. The abandoned, crumbling shells of concrete and steel were dimly exposed by the few high rises still casting their light upon the world. Their presence stained the inky darkness and twinkling stars with a soft grey, hiding the beauty in the plainest of sights. However, that time had not come. Allen could still savor the sun's retreat a little while longer. He still had time to think. 

        The sky distracted him from his original purpose on the ledge. The beauty covered up the pain and terror that this moment would bring him. All day he was alone with his thoughts. He was alone with the conflicting feelings and sense of dread this last week brought him. Ever since his phone awoke and showed him his fate it built to this moment. He could no longer medicate like he had been doing his whole life. He could no longer avoid the disease the plagued him. He was alone. However, this time it was different. His thinking lead him through this turbulent seas of fear that perpetually raged inside. He was insulated now by new thoughts and experiences. The specter that followed him since the day he realized his pain sat calmly by. Allen was free for but a moment. Allen finally felt like he knew the answer to the question he had been asking. The one his dad asked and always told him to ask. Why? Allen finally knew the answer. He laughed to himself a little when he figured it out as it was so simple. After meeting the total strangers, the men who faded into oblivion right before his very eyes, he started to understand. It was not truly know until his conversation with his mother's ghost all but cemented it in his mind. The answer hid in plain sight the whole time. The answer itself was so painfully obvious that people knew it but ignored it. To accept this answer was to fulfill some nihilistic dream. To adhere to the answer would be to put in effort and thought that all poses but few wanted to spare. It was easy to search for the meaning, to push it off into the future. Procrastination was the order of humanity as anything good worth understanding would only invite more confusion and question. Kicking the can down the road but unable to stop. Allen found the answer.

        It was nothing.

        There was no answer to why. There was no rhyme or reason to anything. The good died, the wicked prospered, and the average suffered. Allen remembered his father, the man who perpetuated the thought and who accepted the answer on his own terms. But the answer was not some nihilistic, dreadful invitation to cosmic doom like Allen first thought. Rather the solution was a blank slate that conferred life's true meaning and nature. In a reality without purpose, you had to create your own. It was an uncomfortable truth but those who understood where the masters of it. They were truly free. His father did not just die alone in agony. He did not just abandon his wife and child to selfishly pass. He realized that it was about the choice. His dad chose his path, even if it was selfish and lonely. Allen realized that emptiness offered room to grow and discover. The darkened void he feared was nothing more than a space to be illuminated. Once the shadows were cast out the now visible, barren walls could be adorned with ornaments of time and marks of character. It would be a room filled slowly with the choices made over a whole existence. Many squandered their lives, realizing this fact too late. People forgot about the choice when it was taken from them. The world thought they lost this power when they began to place purpose in a reality where all was predestined and programmed. They confided in place where the choices were artificial because you begot your own freedom and autonomy. They chose to not choose. They chose to be subservient so that their children would never have to think about anything else. Their weakness betrayed the future just like Adam and Eve doomed all to suffer. He finally realized this. He always had a choice even when he felt like he did not. There were always options. They were hidden, hiding and waiting. They were sins of the modern era that whispered in the back of the mind like a serpent. They were forbidden but they were still there, tantalizing you with the devilish allure. The men who faded away succumbed to these sins and thrived in them despite their suffering. Even if one fell to the hands of bureaucratic god's, he chose as long as he could. Allen had options too. Even with the anxiety and fear that gripped his lungs and held his mind hostage, he had a choice.

        He was saddened that it took him this long to realize it. The pain of feeling one's life being wasted, as if time was burning like old dry leaves that fell from autumnal trees. The family tree slowly catching alight from the floating embers till all were consumed by the passage of time. He was the sole root remaining, the one tether to the world. He remembered his mother. She willingly gave it all up. She took the axe handed to her and cut away. Nothing was left of their legacy except for Allen and soon he would be uprooted and burned all the same. However, in this moment, he felt acceptance and let some feeling of comfort that the revelation brought bleed through. This time it was not fleeting. This time his anxiety did not let it drown. He chose to seize this moment.

        Allen breathed in deeply and let the heated air escape through his lips in a puff of whitened vapor. He did not even mind the cold breeze that blew in his face. He was just fixated on the sky. He did not need the cloud in Heaven. He did not need a fake reality where happiness was manufactured in the shape of trees and waves. He did not need a painted sky; Allen just needed to see the real one a final time.

        The specter rose to meet Allen at the ledge. He turned to meet its gaze but the faceless monster he once feared, which crippled his life for so many years, was no monster at all. It was nothing and it was not even really there. The vision faded into the air. Allen was alone but this time it was his choice. He closed his eyes and stepped forward.

        He chose.