"Are you okay?".
"Yeah.".
"You need something?".
"No.", growing irritated and gloomy, as the four walls, as though slowly trapped him in. His stuffed nose was lingering, his mouth ever dry.
"Is there something going on?".
"No.". His eyes were tired and heavy, and as they gently wept, a single tear flowed alone to the floor. Clenching his fist as he sat there, entirely emotionless yet he felt every sense of what surrounded him; the rattling ceiling fan scratching into his ears; the white light that mirrored his watered eyes; the stench of wretched things in these four walls; his tongue seemed filled with metal; and the silence of his friend which truly reflected his entire personality: cold and dull. He sniffed his nose once again.
"I'll-l... I'll just leave you here, he-he".
His friend left silent yet it meant more than what he had said earlier. Silence, silence at last, silence to rest himself. He locked the metal-stricken bathroom door and there he sat on the floor motionless, his eyes gaping with darkness as he closed his lids. Eyes that were as dark as the abyss, eyes bawling with lonely tears, tears to just be one with the water in the end, not knowing that they were something else, something of joy, of melancholy, of belly aches.
There in the darkness, he fell into the abyss of sleep, though he would not be one with the dreamers, far from it. A dreamer of his sort would mostly be silent, knows where he is, yet doesn't accept it, doesn’t know where he'll end up next, and takes as much as possible. A dreamer of his sort seeks full, and achieves nothing; ventures for love, yet discovers the inherent prejudice; finds meaning but doesn't make much out of it. Quite the dreamer that the condemned man may seek, a dreamer of the condemned sleep, a runner of the condemned path, a man of the condemned life. The condemned that do so at their peril, the dreamer of dreams, the runner of paths and the man of life, for they are all at an iceberg at the top, in the crust of the earth, in the visible soul, for they do not look at the true symbol of life, that is-
"MMAAGHH.", A sudden gasp for air struck the silence of the four walls that he was in. His body was asphyxiated, his hands were wrinkly, and his face was pale as white. He looked at his hands and touched his pale skin, wondering what had happened. He felt too lucid in this bathroom, all his sensory nerves felt everything that they had it chance to feel, from the stench of the bathroom to every molecule in the air. It felt powering until he looked in the bathroom mirror.
His legs, arms, and head were in an instant paralysed. There he lay in a sudden, motionless again, feeling nothing but a gasp of air. In just a blink of an eye, all of his senses were gone.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Someone is at the door, but his arms and legs are stunned spaghetti, his mouth is as closed shut as the door, and his opaque eyelids block his sight of light.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
It was getting louder, but he was still motionless, voiceless by every second that passed, the knock grew louder and louder. He lay there still and quiet, with no movement and no voice, a silent life amidst what one would call: "Paradiso" " a place of heavenly justice, of song and earth. There he thoroughly thought out, if heaven is here in this bathroom, here where justice and peace were ever present, would the people that are knocking be in "Purgatorio"? those between heaven and hell. Even so, why? If he was the omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, wouldn't he just give the word to all peoples, and have justice and peace throughout his creations, so that everyone, including the person knocking, could get past the gates of heaven which is the bathroom door in his situation or was he any other man who had lived on Earth, powerless with no good to do in the world, corrupted by the illusions of authority, who is forever blind to justice and humanity. There, flat on the floor, god-like with his own heaven, human-like with his own hell.
There he felt a belly ache erupting within his slim stomach, his hunchback spine making it worse. He wasn't a god nor a human, he was having a bellyache as the second hand of the clock swayed to the next minute. What is here in the second before will be different from the second after, the present is present, the past is gone, and the future is non-existent. A god would deny a concept of a future being imagined, for there is a thought of a better day or heaven within his very plans neither would a human imagine that the past is forever out of their reach, for such irrational beings would want to get back on what was theirs, something they loved, they regretted, something they died for. For he was not a god nor a human, he was having a bellyache, the here and now, his stomach was bursting with pain. But he could only lie on the floor, as his eyes began to fall. He lounged himself to rest his seconds, ticking to the point of sleep. He dreamed of a pretty house with a pretty garden, quiet was all there was, and silence mongered its blossoming daisies and lilacs with the sheer gentle wind coming from the east. He stood there in the middle of the gravel path, wandering on the great ventures that this old red house had gone through. The laughs and cries that it had witnessed, generation after generation, this house held something special. Each flower in the garden planted had a story, a story to share; a girl in a summer's dress who plucked a little lilac for her baby brother; a mother with her children planting a daisy in the blooming spring; a father in the desolate cold, leaving a winter rose for his family silently in the doorway fearing they may awake or an old lady, waiting for the last leaf to fall. For year after year, the daisies and lilacs shed anew, the winter rose adrift alone in the blue pond and the brown leaves of autumn afar from the trees where they flew out from. For that was life. The children shed their purity and innocence, the father adrift in the grand scheme of money and the old woman afar from the pretty house she had once grown up in. That is life, but then again, the lilacs and daisies bloom, the winter rose lie awake and the old tree breathes to grow forever.
He came closer to the wooden door of the house. Knock. Knock. Knock.
The door was fragrant with pure lilacs, vanilla and lavender with the door-knob-shaped rose.
He knocked once again, his knuckles as though becoming one with the scented door, having an aroma of innocent sweetness.
The door swayed across the hall and greeted a lad of his age. The lad showed across the halls of empty portraits and the growing smell of rose oils across the wooden floorboards.
He looked upon to smell of the scented savour of the frames of each portrait; one of a vanilla white rose, of lavender lilacs, sweet lemon daisies and crunchy autumn leaves. The lad across the hall tapped on the wall to get his mind off the scents and be aware of where he was.
Stolen novel; please report.
In the other room what had seemed like a dinner table for four, the voiceless lad placed another chair for his arrangement. The lad then raised his arms.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
There he saw four people coming towards the room. He saw them all in such beautiful raiment, the boy dressed in a blue suit with a red tie, in his hands, a yellow-lemon handkerchief; the girl wore a beautiful dress made of fine silk, spinning around the dress as though it bloomed like a daisy into the air. He saw all this in the blink of an eye, and there he sat, motionless, now conscious of what he was wearing, looking down with ragged pants with more than three holes and an oversized shirt that reached to his knees, with flip-flops holding dearly to his feet.
The Mother and Father were the same with their children, as he saw them with a suit and dress. It was a sight that was truly amusing to the human eye, suits that could get you anywhere in life and dresses that make you bloom and glitter. Yet he felt awkward sitting there in the middle of this voiceless family with what he was wearing.
The lad sprawled through the kitchen door to deliver the food they could only put in their mouth. He had been hungry yet he didn't feel it, not yet. The food was placed on the table and the Family and e̵̘̩͖̯͌̋̃̎͝ḱ̵̺͕͉̹͖̬̞͓̩͊ȉ̸̧͍̟̪̱͇̝̞͙̝̓̑̉͊͋̓̕m̵̻̞͛̿͒͋̾͐͛͐͑͘̕͠͝ held their hands to send their thoughts to Terrence the Cabybara.
They all closed their eyes for 42 seconds and started their feast.
The table lingered with silence, as usual, everyone stiffened voiceless. Everyone crunched and chewed, as they feasted on the violet-coloured hotdogs, fried crunchy leaves and the fuming "chick-nana", a chicken stuffed banana. It tasted of sweet bananas and steamed chicken, rather the great taste of a great family.
After he was done with his oily fingers from the fried leaves, he went outside to the garden, The sun was ending its day with a red sky, he sniffed the air of the garden and gazed upon the vermillion house once again.
The father went outside and followed him to the garden, he took out his red handkerchief and patted his mouth dry. "I see you liked supper.", he murmured, smelling the air of the Earth and gazing upon the red sky.
"Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Penitence, the food was truly beautiful, it was everything but ordinary," he said gently, smiling.
"Beautiful?!", Mr. Penitence angered and confused, "I suppose you thought of it wrong, our food is everything ordinary."
"What do you mean by that?", he replied, "Yes, it's fascinatingly beautiful.", he added.
"And that's not what we desire. I suppose we, as an ordinary family, want to find the beauty of the ordinary, to romance the ordinary.", the father said rather graciously. "I know now your idea of beauty, you scent beauty as something of lilacs or daisies, we smell the air of the Earth. You see beauty as fancy dresses and suits that'll get you nowhere but disgrace, we see beauty as one of yours, one of the peasantry, one of the common things in life. You feed on beauty as food that doesn't even get tasted by the impoverished, we taste them of molasses and potatoes.", the father shrugged with every word being felt from his heart. "All I'm saying, e̵̘̩͖̯͌̋̃̎͝ḱ̵̺͕͉̹͖̬̞͓̩͊ȉ̸̧͍̟̪̱͇̝̞͙̝̓̑̉͊͋̓̕m̵̻̞͛̿͒͋̾͐͛͐͑͘̕͠͝, is that to find romance in the beautiful is ordinary but to find romance in the ordinary is beautiful. That was why I invited you for dinner. To seek an easy life is to find the ordinary, heaven is on Earth, That is what most people do not get, yet some people believe in fanatics that there will be a better day than today for them, but there is no other day than today. They seek things that are impossible to acquire, and by doing so, they harm themselves. Their desire these days is for the beautiful, their prejudices are all against the ordinary. One can never experience the entire universe and its endless secrets that soar to its expanding edges, It is better to experience our own Earth and ourselves. All is here and here is all, that is the fundamental verity we shall all know.", Penitence said with courage. e̵̘̩͖̯͌̋̃̎͝ḱ̵̺͕͉̹͖̬̞͓̩͊ȉ̸̧͍̟̪̱͇̝̞͙̝̓̑̉͊͋̓̕m̵̻̞͛̿͒͋̾͐͛͐͑͘̕͠͝, with all the words that he'd heard from the father, mere words that he had heard from his ears. Words, put together were the missing piece for his beautiful ordinary life.
"After all the years of wanting to achieve the ordinary, the piece we needed was you, an ordinary looking for beauty. How ironic life is", Mr. Penitence laughed.
But the ordinary man stood there with his two feet on the ground, smelling the air of the plain grass, seeing as the sun ends its day with a red-orange sky, tasting the dry saliva of his thin mouth and hearing the echoes of the whispering wind as it showers his hair. He and Penitence watched as the sunset unfolded and the shining moon revealed itself. They felt the true ordinary lives that they wanted. The sun setting on its millionth hot day and the moon greeting its thousandth cold night, yet it was still beautiful.
He parted from Penitence to see more of the moon. He heard a sudden explosion across the field but he did not care what it was.
The Moon was beautiful as it has always been beautiful. But there was a lingering dark side to it, as though it was getting stupidly cold, every limb in his body started to feel a sense of immense shiver, through his arms to his legs. His lips were as though felt the dryness of its skin and his eyes watered as they gently poured down his cheeks, then it got too cold to bear that his whole body started to feel numb and cold, feeling everything and nothing at the same time. In a beat of a heart, he collapsed to his knees and lay in the cold grass under the moonlight like a slithering snake in the dead of night.
"OUGHH.", He choked. The stench of chloride water was there, he dared not to get it in his eyes nor get some in his mouth. The door was locked shut, He must have slept overnight. The cold water was rapidly getting to his knees. He clenched his fist once again and punched the steel door that was barricading the water from getting out. He knocked at the door calling for someone and sobbed but no one was on the other side. Tears vulgarly poured down upon his face as water began to reach his waist. To drown is to die a horrible death, he didn't want that, no one wants that, he cried out once again and again. There was no hope for his future was in his hands, the cold water had gotten up to the door and there seemed to be no man to reach for him, he stayed afloat thinking of how it would end, he breathed the chlorine air and smiled as he saw that the light bulb is lit, he will die better than drowning he smiled but he thought of how this was his Heaven, this was his hope, does he want to die a fast and painless death or one slow and full of it? He thought of the clock that was adrift in his way, how with every passing second, the before was completely different from the after, on how he locked himself in a bathroom, now deemed to die, that will never happen again he thought. If the second before will never come back to be the second after, may as well take as much pain and misery as possible. In such an absurd passion, we only live once, we can only stare at death with a sense of passion and suffering, and may as well take as much suffering and passion as much as possible.
The artist's work shall be revealed and the artist himself shall be concealed for his magnum opus was finished. Though it was darkness he could only glimpse, he knew it was beautiful. The bulb socket was sealed shut with scotch tape as he floated amidst, he grinned goofily in the black silence as the bulb began to cool down in his hands. He knew a worse way to die but depriving your lungs of oxygen seemed easier.
All the lessons about asphyxiation coming out of the blabbering mouths of their instructors all came to this point.
Knowing that every second of the minute he'll be alive will all be worth it.
His hand reached to caress the metal ceiling as the water rose, they were about to meet and this was his final minute. A last gasp of chlorine air caved through his mouth.
With hair that waved gently like seaweed on the ocean floor, ears only flooding with fluids and eyes wide open, gazing upon these wretched dark waters. There he floated thinking about the second before and the one after, how precious they were all were.