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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1409730-Sky-pale-grey
Rated: E · Short Story · Death · #1409730
Don't listen to funeral for a friend on repeat, or this happens!
Sky pale gray of a washed out rain face,ground's dark sheen.Between the two I trudge.These legs barely carry me, so laden am I with other's ideas and worries. Walking means a fixed destination, intended or otherwise, and every step, every glance around me is a consideration of my end.
  The bridge shadows the horizon already. Turning off into the trees, I shelter from the road's busy roaring. Black footfalls in the leaflitter, my hands curled in safe warm pockets. The silhouettes of budding leaves that my desperate eyes scan will still be there as I pass, and they do not alter my thoughts. I have always tried to see. Even now, I stretch out blunt fingers to the tall grass, dry and rustling in the wind. Wind furls my hair, hisses in my eyes. I snatch back my hand, resolving that it will never feel again.
  Real comprehension dawns, and my stomach sickens. Do I have the right? I am so used to feeling unimportant, nad unable to change huge truths, that the power I have over this body is almost unbelievable. This beautiful machinery, this intricate patchwork of blood and nerves and cells, is mine to break. Dispersion and disintegration will unpick the pattern, the stain will wash away. The thought of decay wettens my eyes and quickens my pulse. It is never a natural reaction to want this.
  My feet lead me out into the relative daylight of the wet sky, and up the tired gray concrete. How many times have I seen these same gray and black markings, how many times have my legs lifted my body up the steps of the bridge? If there is a god in those cold clouds, I decide, he is not watching me. Rain hits my face, makes perfect blotches and tiny shapes on the ground. My skin feels, my ears hear; everything is working, my eyes swoop over the steep dizzy drop as my hands clutch the railing. Breath. Breath, it is loud in my head, it is the one thing that is constant in my mind as all the other thoughts rush through- I shouldn't be doing this- I'm so ungrateful-who will be left to clean up- what will my mum do- what's the point? What is the point? The rushes in and out fill the cavity in my lungs, in my head. Soon I will be nothing, no eyes to see, no eyes to close. The rain breaks down, sticks my hair to my skin and my skin to my clothes. I lean back from the railings, my legs so weak that my knees almost fold. A gray-haired man walks past me, a rustling walk caused by a warm body in layers of clothes and coat. "Not a nice view today, love" he gives me. I nod.
© Copyright 2008 Jenny Ritchie (jennyritchie at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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