Silence.
In the small spaces where the texts rang out and the parts of my day where I laughed to myself at something silly or sweet or poignant.

Last night I woke up to my phone buzzing, like the bird at the window that you sometimes imagine.  
There was nothing there, just static. I looked at it, turned it over for a bit in my hand and then fell asleep somewhere along the way.

The morning, my phone was still barren. No ideas crammed in winding messages and no late night missed calls that comfort you - because you know it's nice that someone remembered you once everyone had slept.

You must return. That's how it's supposed to be. 

The rain is falling at the foot of my bed and I am lying on my nervous stomach, mentally separating  the raindrops; the happy from from the sad.

Some come and sit on my palm, some scatter away against my pillow, making patterns that stay even many years later. 

There is a place, not far from here, where the benches are wooden and yellow and the sun sets behind the trees quietly, like most other sunsets. The darkness isn't compelling and nothing about the place is intrusive.

The people there look through you and walk by because they are fighting with their own demons, or the lack of them, and don't really need to worry about why your eyes look swollen or why you have lost questionable amounts of weight in the days gone by. The couples there are fighting but their voices make no sound, it's like bubbles under water or fear that lets you scream in silence. 

Then you walk by and you break into a jog and before you know it you're running full pelt, the wind breaking against your face and your nose running diffidently. Then eventually you come to a point from where you started and you realize that you have gone around the scheme of things once and finally you don't feel better per se, but you definitely feel different and that's hardly a bad thing. 

The girl at the bus stop waited for a while before she pulled out her phone and dialled a number. Then she dialled it again. After the third time, she gave up and sat there with her head hung low.

The sun went down a little and when she looked up her face chalky and pale, and she had aged ten years in sixty minutes. She looked at her phone again while her eyes leaked defeat and her hands trembled a little.

By the time she left, she was a changed person. Something somewhere had snapped. Some cog in the machine had given way. Her gait was a little altered, as though she had forgotten how to walk and it was now a pointed effort.

I saw her world rattle a little, while the rest of the real world walked by like it was just another dandy Sunday evening. 

Somewhere down the road, the trees block the path.

At such a place, people wonder for a bit and then walk away. They make quiet conversations that no one know of. They look confused. Their journeys are cut short.

I climbed that tree with you and we watched the world go by. We couldn't get past, but we created a little trip for ourselves.

I sat there, my arm wrapped around your neck and my eyes sparkling. That minute felt like a long while; one that I wanted to re-live over and over again.

The next time people complained of the road block, I turned away and smiled into the sun. 

He came in on a little boat and sat by the shore. He didn't look tired for someone who'd been rowing. Perhaps he hadn't been too far away. I could see the patterns his back muscles made through his thin shirt. I could see the dark brown of his neck, like clay before you make a pot. He sat with his back to me, knees drawn to his chest, staring into the sea.

The waves came and broke a little away from him and then meekly went away. The setting sun cast a glow on him. I looked at his back for a while, but he didn't move and he didn't turn. After a while, a dog came and sat by his side. He petted it in a distant manner, where the affection and the attention was doled out with care so as to not waste any of it.

In the warmth that the world bathes in after the sun has gone, he turned around and looked at me in the eye. I felt a slight flutter and my face twisted itself into what I think was a smile. He nodded and raised his hand a little bit. He knew I was watching all along, a stalker in beach slippers. 

Then he got onto his boat and moved away, slicing the water, until all he became was a speck in the sea.

The roads all end in the same little clearing at the edge of the apparent world.

We are all there. We are all a part of something seemingly big. We are holding hands and looking doe-eyed at the sky.

There's a stiff wind and the abyss not too far away is cloaked in a fog as thick as you wouldn't even imagine. I half expect people to take pictures. But they don't. We aren't those people anymore. We are older, wiser, calmer.

My palms are sweating a little and there's a strange little flutter somewhere deep within me. I shut my eyes tight and open them again. The ground beneath me slips a little. Then a little more. Then it's like we are on roller skates in a surreal little skating rink.

There's darkness. It's over. It really is.