Reality And Us

Chapter Seven

The air was warm that day, October had already started painting the leaves in more colors than Nick was able to count. It still had that certain warmth, almost as if summer was afraid to leave, or maybe it was just a way of saying good bye, a 'see you next year'.

If you looked closely you could spot a little bit of autumn's special color in some corners of the streets, some garden's owners have already formed small piles with their trees' gifts.

The setting sun made the sky look almost golden, and Nicklas skin looked warmer than usual in that light, the sun felt warm when it kissed his skin.

The wind ruffled through his hair, but he didn't let it bother him as he strolled through the streets. When he had seen the beautiful scenery earlier he just had to go on a walk, letting his mind capture the last few moments of this special kind of warmth that year.

There were a lot of other people outside, their intentions not too different from his own, each one of them eager to spend time enjoying what this season had to offer, this beautiful bliss people of all ages recognized and loved.

Nick mustered some of them as his feet continued to move slowly, he let his eyes fall on their faces, their smiles. Their laughter filling the air was uncommonly delightful that evening, he felt very human, as human as he never felt before.

This mise en scène made him appreciate the beauty of life, even if just for a split moment, but he felt different.

He was someone different than the day before, and he'd be someone different by tomorrow. He knew that. But everything about those few seconds had an euphoric feeling bloom inside his chest, so he simply welcomed the present.

He was smiling as he walked to the park. The sight of young and old people playing together greeted him and he took a moment to stop.

Just stop. Everything.

He then proceeded to walk through the park, the green of the grass wasn't as intense or prominent as usual, the colors autumn had painted the world with were too eye-catching.

All the people in the park were loud, but Nick ignored their presence with ease, feeling too joyful to let those facetious people make his time less rapturous.

Sitting down on a bench of a beautiful dark brown he stared at the lake, the water was magnificent.

At that moment, he would've said, he was in love with life.

What he wouldn't have added could have clarified that him being in love with life did not equal to him respecting other living beings, it didn't equal to him appreciating life through honesty or modesty, and it most definitely didn't equal to him being completely happy with what his life was, or at least not unhappy.

Because, saying any of those things would've been a lie.

Nick wasn't a hundred percent aware that saying those things would've been a lie.

Of course, he did know that he wasn't exactly happy with his current situation. There were a lot of aspects that bothered him; he should've been a better keeper, he still needed to solve the mystery of Zane and he really needed to come out - he might not be fully consciously aware of that -, just to name a few of his problems.

And yeah, all those problems made his life quite dull a lot of the time.

He spent too much time thinking, being scared. He spent too much time pretending to be someone he wasn't, pretending other people to be people they weren't.

But he didn't know that.

Knowing that might've made things better, might've made them worse, but there was no way of knowing how it would've affected him.