When the morning sun crept in through his windows, he felt himself stirr underneath his blankets. The wrikling of the wry and plaid material against his skin annoyed him. He opened his eyes to see the clock hanging by his bedroom wall. It was tomorrow already. Frustrated at his lack of sleep in the past week, he woke up disgruntled.
As he dragged his feet to his bathroom a sharp pain shot through his forehead and into his skull only to dissipate away at the back of his head. He could feel his nose burn as he took in fresh breaths of air, a simple reminder of darker and lost times.His back and shoulders ached with pain as he walked along. He no longer stood tall and rigid, but sagged around his shoulders as if to acknowledge defeat.
Blinded partially, he enters the bathroom to take in the mesmerizing scenery that unfolded infront of his eyes, The tiles basked in the warm, golden glow of the sunlight fulfilling this pathetic void he had seen mere hours ago. How had he not known about this? This was his room, his domain, the only place in this Godforsaken world he felt like himself. His eyes widened at the imagery created; it was as if the lights were awaiting the arrival of an entity of sorts - perhaps an angel.
And reality crashed over him - the light didn't welcome an angel. It welcomed something worse. The person which it greeted couldn't be considered a human being and let alone an angel.
He smiled serenely, the same smile he had given his friends when they repeatedly barged him with the question. Ah, the question, a beautiful three-worded sentence that people seemed to think would force anyone into revealing themselves. Try as they might, they would never break him, they would never know what he felt, what he wanted - they would never know who he was.
Whenever, the three words excaped them - are you okay? He would smile and say, ' I'm great.' A smile of a million lies would persuade someone into leaving him alone with his thoughts. Yet, he held no grudges - he liked be alone and basking in self-loathing. It made him human. It made him better.
As he got ready to fall back into the same repeative routine the world held for him - he paused. It had been months since he properly saw himself. The man in the mirror seemed to look like him. move like him, mimic every single expression on his face. Yet, it wasn't him. Wasn't he more happier? Wasn't he more joyful? Where was the laughter that seemed to be eternally latched to his face?
His hands reached to the bottom of his t-shirt and as he he tugged it upwards, he felt his vision being obscured. He held the white 'We Built This City' t-shirt in one hand and threw it away. He examined himself thoroughly. From his deltoids to triceps and even to his abdominal muscles seemed to be more tonned and rugged. He wasn't ripped and yet he wasn't that obese young child he used to be. Most people would have been pleased, he wasn't.
This made him arrogant, made him feel better than others and made him feel disrespectful towards women who have so blindly hurt him in times past.He looked over his shoulders to see the wounds inflicted on the left side of his shoulder. He couldn't remember how he ever got it. He looked down his left arm to see the punctures left by the tip of the needle. They were fading away but area around it remainded blue and bruised. It was his greatest failure and he never forgave himself for it.
Looking up the mirror, he finally saw it. For the first time ever he saw it clearly - the mask he wore now next to the face he had when he was young and innocent. He walked away from his image, disguted and revolted. He banged into his room, fury boiling inside of him and pain welling at his heart. He cracked a window open, light up his favourite brand of cigarette and inhaled deeply.
The nicotine compound tore away at his lungs, the pain from his smoky companion did nothing to diminish the real monster roaring at his chest. He ransacked through his CDs and finally found it. He lay back on his bed and puffed along as The Foreigner's Long, Long Way From Home blared through his speakers.
He dragged and inhaled, relaxed and breathed out. Within the interval of a couple of minutes the bin in his bedroom would make a thumping noise as he dumped away the many burnt and now obsolete filters into it.
He did not know how long he lay awake but he did notice his packet on being empty. Almost simultaneously, his cell phone rang. He took his time in answering it for he was in no hurry to engage himself to the bitter world that had made him thus, and when he picked it up, he heard his friend's familiar voice on the other end.
'Really,' he thought to himself as he donned on his clothes as he headed out to meet with them, ' I should've made friends who care less.'
