Little Worlds

Tsunami Tides and Destroyed Night Skies

Your hands shook, each bone seemingly about to crumble from your fingers. Your head tilted to the side, covering your stained pink cheeks with your hair. You stared at the rough wooden floor slats, the dust twirling and dancing in the afternoon breeze. Your eyes felt as if the rectus was being held back by a hot metal vice, pulling the nerves and desperately latching onto the moisture within them. You can't cry, not now.

A suffocating weight has birthed itself in your chest, and your arms and your feet, as if your organs were weighed down by a jackhammer. You closed your eyes, ignoring the protest of every brain nerve, screaming at you that you had to DO something. You cannot cry, not now.

You still faced the wall, letting the autumnal wind blow onto your face, cooling the fear and the melancholy shame briefly. And then the huge beast began to grow in your stomach, a beast twisted with rage and anger and bitterness, and your bones hardened enough for you to clench your fists so tightly you were sure your nails pierced your skin.

"I could just go you know," he spat.

And your eyes gave up, a tsunami rising and rising, tipping over and flooding your cheeks with hopeless salt water. And your fingers fell apart from their fists like ripe blossom drifting from a tree. It was the truth, the truth that hit you flat in the chest, squashing your windpipe and choking you. It was true. He could just go.

"No," you mumbled flatly, hoping it was loud enough to hear.

"Don't, don't even start that," he muttered, his voice a shock as much as if he had yelled at you straight in the face.

"W-we can't keep doing this," you whispered, letting your sad raindrops patter your dress.

"Then why are you still here," he said, his tone heavy like granite.

"What?" you choked, your feet spinning round before you could stop them.

And there he was stood before you, but he was not yours. You knew this now, maybe you had always known it.

"Why aren't you JUST. LEAVING?!" he said, losing his grip on the bubbling anger you could see in his pupils and shouting.

"Why... aren't you?" you murmured, glancing up from your tidal wave eyelashes.

"I can't. I can't do this again, I'm gone. And don't ever think that I will come back," he said, with a glare so strong, his silver pupils may have been sending steel arrows straight at you, piercing every organ. Piercing every hope you had ever had.

Your legs drained into the floor, like a grey glue binding you to that very spot. This feeling that was beginning to consume you was something so hard, so unreadable, so immobilising, there was only one way you could describe it. Imagine your favourite colour, your favourite place, something so precious, so beautiful, so yours. The night sky for example, a rich aquamarine blanket, protecting the world, pinpricked with white paint splodges of stars. You love it, you appreciate it, you could never live without it, the way it makes you feel so alive, you can't even imagine losing it.

Then every star burns out, all there is left behind is darkness, a grey darkness. And that thing that was so precious and so beautiful, is gone. And you realise now that nothing is ever going to be the same again, and the world seems so dark, and there are no lights in the sky.

That was what you felt right now, and your beautiful night sky was picking up everything he had, everything you shared, everything you had of him. And you knew there was no way you could stop him, because how does one bring back a burnt out star?

"Don't even bother saying goodbye," he scoffed, glancing you up and down once, and once only.

And then he was walking towards the door, and you knew that soon, soon everything would implode, and there would be nothing but pain. If you had one wish, one wish, it would not be to erase all the pain or the truth, it would be to make seconds stretch to hours and ours stretch to days, because you did not wish to see him disappear through that door.

You stared at his back, his fading silhouette still the brightest thing in the room. You stared at the tender stretch of his fingers, that once comforted you, once made you feel like everything was going to be okay, and how they now curved around the terrifying cold of the door handle. He turned, and you caught one brief moment, one brief moment of sentimentality as his eyes glued with yours one last time. The pearly metal of his eyes, that once reminded you how beautiful the world could be.

And then the seconds ended, and the world stopped and all you could hear was the haunting echo of a closed door. An echo you knew would stay with you forever, unlike the person that caused it. Your universe was gone, your pretty night sky, your everything. Gone.

"Goodbye," you choked, your throat collapsing in on itself.

You awoke with a violent jump, eyes aching from a terrible nightmare. You reached out fumbling through the smothering sea of sheets, clutching grasping for him. But all that touched you was the cold, infinite space of an echo that once was. Nightmares are real, no matter what lies you tell yourself. And nothing is truly yours.