We met on a chilly winter night, at the dimly-lit corner just seventy-seven steps from the little shack I call home. He was wasted, beer bottle clutched in a bloody hand as the other grasped at the ground, grime-filled nails scratching against the cement. He sang in a rich mellow voice, wordless songs flowing out like warm scotch. His eyes spoke of loss, confusion and weariness. I brought him home, the boy who was my reflection.

I wouldn’t say we were brothers. We were more of strangers who…

Strangers who had loved each other in their previous lives.

It’s been seven years, seven months and seven days since the night we first met. For seven hundred days, I walk home after a lifeless day and he opens the door, taking my heavy bag and placing it on the armchair. I bring out the takeaway food and we have dinner in silence. He clears the plates. I sit across him at the coffee table and we stare into blank space. He asks a question and I try to answer.

“How am I supposed to know what to do next, when I can barely keep myself afloat right now?”

But I fail to answer each and every time, because the answers are what I’m still searching for.

For seven hundred days, we lived lives of double questions and crazy doubts, looking for white in the Devil’s wings.

On the seventh day after those seven hundred days, we walk to the corner seventy-seven steps from the little shack I call home. We sit across each other and he asks his question.

“You’re tired of me, are you not?”

How can I be tired of someone who’s exactly like me? But then again, why not? Perhaps, I’m tired of myself too. Perhaps, the weight of this life is too heavy and my knees are already buckling. Perhaps, I’m not even carrying it any longer. Perhaps, I’m lying crushed under this empty shell, waiting like a fool for the rescue from myself. Perhaps, I let him in thinking he could save me. Which was a foolish thought indeed because he was just as destroyed as I was and still am.

But it didn’t matter at that moment though.

It didn’t matter that I was a mess because he was broken and two shattered beings can make the other hurt more – they do possess the gift of numbing.

The answer comes in a whisper – ugly little remnants of a soul shredded so.

“The thing to do next, is to stop thrashing in the waters and simply sink. Believe me, we’ll float effortlessly.”

Challenge #4 | 05/04/2013 | 17/04/2013