Words

 

The broken windows of the room let a cold, dark air sweep through. He sat there, alone. He only awaited the next cold wave. To awake him, to make him move. Wave after wave, cold breezes gushed at him and broke against his slouched frame. He did not move though.

Her words resonated in his ears. Words that are seldom used to describe a person you love. Words that are used one at a time but in his case, were used all at once. Words and phrases like ‘complacent’, ‘lazy’,’wasted potential’, ‘never took risks’, ‘unmotivated’, among many others. Like a statue should remember the cuts that chipped away the most stone, he recalled these phrases as the ones that hurt most.

Another cold gust swept through the room. A chill ran through him and the hair on his arms stood up to protest it. His thoughts, though, remained with that morning. She had moved away. She packed her bags that morning and left the house, but somehow she had moved away much before that. He did not blame her. She deserved a better life, and the man she now loved, would provide that life.
He looked out of the broken window pane. A frail tree in the distance was swinging violently with the gusts of wind. With each toss, the tree seemed to get weaker. It was as though it had given up, and was now only waiting for the final blow that strikes it down. They were much akin, him and this tree. He recalled the last happy moment he spent with her. It seemed so long ago. One weekend, she had come home with a packet of cake mix. She wanted to learn to bake. The look on her face that day was worth a man’s life in hell, if that’s what it cost. Her eyes beamed, her words did not stop flowing, her hands were trembling with excitement and her voice oscillated between varying tones of energy. It seems so long ago now.

The streetlights outside his window flickered with the cold wind. He did not realize that he had been sitting in the dark. He also did not realize that he had left the radio on. A voice echoed through the room. It was another song, but somehow it was not just any other. Tear drops rushed to his eyes as if to distract the memories that were conjured up in his mind now. He brushed them away; he had to.

The cold air was getting severe by the minute. He cupped his head in his exasperated hands and took a deep breath,  filling up cold air in his lungs. He arose from the seat with a jerk, and mindlessly went to the storeroom. He returns with a hammer and a small plank. Deftly, and carefully, he nails the plank to cover the hole in the window pane. He switches on the lights and the heater. He walks up to a desk and writes "Complacent, Lazy, Wasted potential, Never took risks, Unmotivated" on a piece of paper. He pins it on the wall above the desk. Life, as he knew it, would not be the same ever again.

 

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