The movies once taught me that the end would culminate in loud, flashy fashion. A scandalous breakup perhaps, or a loud and sudden loss—but never would I have ever known that, in reality, it is silent.
Not even a whisper, nor a puff of air from one’s chest. One day, everything just becomes oddly quiet.
There were days when I was fine. It felt relieving, like thorns having been pulled from my flesh. It was bliss having not to worry about open sores. Yet somehow, I’ve been fooled to think that there were roses in a bush of spines. Perhaps, if I could endure the pain of being pricked, I would be able to bask in the scent of flowers.
I could still faintly hear the echoes of laughter within the walls of the hall we once populated. The chairs and tables were still there, slowly showing its wear and tear from the elements. What used to be a place so warm became that of ruin. Sure, you were all still there—but the void within the cracks grew larger by the day.
When the loss was still fresh, I saw a few of you pass by. One looked thinner than I remembered, while the others had grown their hair to the point where it almost looked disheveled. I never knew suppressed unfinished business could do numbers on those who were usually unaffected.
People had been telling me to forget and move on—but how could I simply disregard, with the snap of a finger, a part of my own history, and those who occupied my mind and spent time with me?
In your presence, though, I didn’t bat an eye. In my point of view at that very moment, you all never existed. But as soon as you were gone, my hands trembled, as if I had seen restless spirits roaming about.
I closed my eyes. Did deep breaths, then carried on as if nothing had happened. Pretended the grazed scabs weren’t bleeding.
But now, whenever I see even one of you roaming around, I simply smile and walk away, for I wish not to disturb the peace. Everything has been already said and done, and I have finally accepted the reality of life. I am nearing the end of the cycle of grief that once consumed me. Since then, I have never strayed from the direction of the sunlight. After so much rain, my body craved for warmth from the sky. Thankfully, fate had finally looked my way.
Perhaps the movies weren’t completely wrong after all—maybe I had just misled myself to that conclusion. The end did end loudly, but not in a way I expected: a hurrah of new beginnings, eclipsing the bitterness of what once was.
Nevertheless, I still keep a small box of trinkets that reminded me of all of you, tucked away in a mostly-forgotten corner of my mind’s eye. An act of final kindness of some sort.
You were like the dead, refusing to speak. Pride, a lethal disease, was what killed you, and now I’ve been left with ghosts sometimes still attempting to haunt me with bygone days. No prayer, let alone a miracle, could bring you back. And here I am, burying any memory left between us after I mourned all of you for too long.
I am unsure whether or not I still have any love left to give you. It seems as though you have wasted it while you were still here, throwing it all away instead of giving back the excess. You could’ve told me you never needed it in the first place.
While I could’ve appreciated some semblance of an apparition, I’m doing more than splendid in your absence. After all, isn’t it too much to ask of those who have passed on long ago?
