The Lonely House

Splinters fell from the rafters into his unkempt hair as he sat motionless in front of a stale, roach infested loaf of bread and a moldy, cold bowl of soup. As he looked at his glass of murky water, a tremor sent dirt gravitating into it leaving him with no appetite for what lay in front of him. He swept his arm across the table sending his meal crashing to the floor.
He slowly pushed himself back from the table and stood up in a futile attempt to brush off the dirt that clung to his torn black suit. When his hand made a path through the grime, the dust in the air quickly settled in the space.
He walked over to the remainder of his large dining room windows, wincing with every step due to the throbbing headache that had been brought on by stress. He was filled with a sense of longing for things gone as he gazed out on the remnants of his town reminded that a series of earthquakes had destroyed the place he had grown to call home. The sights and sounds he had seen and heard leading up to this distressing day haunted his memory. He coughed as dust filled his lungs making his headache pound even harder.
The empathetic flowers and cards that covered the expansive banquet table behind him lay wilting or dead already. To him, there seemed to be no compassion in those gifts. He looked at the picture in his hand of his wife, the edges bent and torn crediting the many times it had been gazed upon. The cold air found its way through the gaping hole in one wall of the dining room, reminding him that his wife's warmth was gone.
He looked back down at the picture of his wife still in his hand and slid another picture out from behind it. It was a picture of his two year old daughter. This picture was new and fresh, not yet aged by her father's love and admiration.
Nostalgia set in when he recalled the dreadful phone call informing him that his wife and daughter had been killed in the collapse of a nearby shopping mall when the first earthquake hit.
Drearily, he found his way into the den and threw himself at the mercy of his favorite chair. As his weight plummeted onto the chair, a prodigious cloud of dust enveloped him.
A tear smeared the fine layer of dirt on his cheek as he realized that he had nothing left besides the contents of his hands. In one hand, his family, in the other, a gun. He put the barrel between his teeth and squeezed the trigger.
An overwhelming peace overtook him as the air no longer made him cough, the wind no longer chilled him, the memories no longer haunted him and the sorrow brought no more tears.
His cold and lifeless hands dropped to the seat of the chair and released their contents. The pictures he had once held so dear, fell carelessly to the floor. As the gun hit the floor, it fired off another bullet just as another earthquake destroyed what was left of that lonely house.