exercise #1

Slowly, he walked to the window.

"It's so beautiful," he said, as he rubbed the tears from his eyes.

A solitary white, puffy cloud glared at him from above, as if to say that no, it was not a beautiful day, it was just a normal day, devoid of any aesthetic quality at all, and it'd be angry if he thought otherwise. It sat along a backdrop of blue merging into gray, lazily being dragged along the paths its brethren had traversed eons before it. A storm was approaching.

The pale blue frame of the window, designed to blend with the eternal day outside, seemed now to mock his very existence. Trapped within a cage, a body that would not listen, a mind which would not speak. The lines on his face betrayed the pain he had suffered, though his youthful features contrasted them in a pleasing yet unnatural way. Perhaps that would be his immortal consolation prize in death.


He turned and examined the table as if it were an old friend. One who you had not seen in a while, but had come in - "Hey there, Dave!" - and proceeded to squat for an unknowable period of time. The well-worn grooves and marks in the timber glowed oddly under the flickering yellow light. The crimson splotches adorned the table, proudly displaying battle-scars from previous occupants, tempting, and willing others to follow. It had been here when he had arrived, and it would be here after he was gone. Maybe, he thought, as his mind clung to a sliver of hope, they won't need me to go anywhere at all.

The rain-storm brought the cloud's brethren as reinforcement; a gradual sidling up to the man's window, as if they were just casually trying to assess the furniture of his room, and then, suddenly, a plunging torrent of water.

He did not have much time.

The cold, gray steel shone starkly from the middle of the table. Whispered destruction and swift revenge; the ugly weapon given a makeover for the act to follow. The impossible choice given to a broken man as his once-shining mind crumbled in solitude. His hands trembled as he picked up his personal instrument of farewell, his own signature design still noticeable on the handle - a red flame with the word ADIOS scrawled in black paint - an homage to those he had been forced to say goodbye to.

The cold, hard hail had started to rap at his window - tapping incessantly, calling for action. That one solitary cloud had now grown in size and in power to bring together an immense storm. It raged outside his window and raged at his inaction, reflecting the rage that had been sapped from his very being over the months and years of pain, of torment, of heartbreak.

"Adios," he whispered, a smile on his face.