Story of stories

What is left

They said it would happen. That one day it would all be gone. They said it was coming. 

Everyone feared the end. Everyone was scared of  what would happen next. 

The 13 year old boy was everyone. He was an average boy. He was someone you would see sitting by themselves at a lunch table. The boy was not special or powerful or even popular. But he was not scared of the end, in fact he embraced it with open arms. The boy did his best at everything he did, he worked hard and did good in school and life and yet he was still average. No one wants to go their whole life being average but the boy was content. 

The end was near and everyone could feel it. The boy did nothing. Everyone around him told him to worry that this would be his only chance but he knew better. 

The end came that day but the boy was left unscathed and unafraid. 

Silence. It wasn’t long after until the end was supposedly coming again. This time the boy was frightened, he already had a chance. The boy did nothing to prove himself worthy of another chance. His end was coming. 

The boy stayed in one spot. He did not advance in life. He did not try harder. He did not want the end to come, he wanted a chance to explain, a chance to go back and fix his mistakes.  

He sat, awaiting the end. His body shook with fear and his hands trembled under the voices. He was scared, scared that the voices and the end would destroy him all. He did not want the end to come, he wanted to be his own end. He wanted to decide when the end came. “NO” the voice shouted, the end kept him trapped. He couldn’t escape, he was left for the voice to decide his end. The voice ridiculed him and belittled him, the 13 year old boy had never felt such shame and sorrow. The voice pounded in his head, taunting him. 

I am happy to say that the voice didn’t end the boy. But the boy was punished.

The boy would never be that average fearless boy. He would live in fear awaiting the end and longing for it. The boy would live hoping and praying and wishing to let himself decide the end.

The boy would spend his whole life shaking and cowering in front of the voice. The boy would try to hold on but the voice would whisper “let go, there is nothing left”. The voice would drive the boy to insanity, regret and the inevitable. The inevitable of what would come when the voices came again. The boy met the end that day, it was the end for him, the end of the carefree boy.

Now what is left is a shell of a boy holding even though everyone is telling him to let go. He just hopes someone will whisper in his other ear “hold on tighter”