Shame 3 By D.I. Jolly
As he embraced the stillness of night and watched the car slip quietly into the dark, unforgiving water, a thought came to him.
“It comes to all of us,” he thought, “at one time or another.” He then put a cigarette in his mouth, and turned to start walking.
“Sometimes it just hits you like a bolt of ice through the heart. Making you wish you could pull yourself inside of yourself, and go back in time and stop whatever it was from ever happening. “
The night air was cold and sobering, and while a part of him longed for a car to come by and give him a lift, he knew he’d rejected if it did.
“Sometimes it’s just a lingering weight on your shoulders, not really heavy, but constant, pushing you down, calling your every decision into question.”
When he reached the borders of his city, that same part of him looked at the houses, wishing he lived there, just so that he could already be home.
“Dragging you down during the day and keeping you awake at night.”
Eventually, as the sun began to rise, he walked into the next hotel he saw and took a room. Knowing full well he was paying double a day’s rate for no more than 7 hours.
“It drives you from your friends, it hides you from your loved ones. It makes you scream at the innocent, in a deep self-replenishing, self-destructive cycle of pain.”
The hot water of the shower was the first respite he got in what felt like a week, and when he stepped out and looked at the bed, he knew he needed to call down to extend his stay.
“It paints your dreams black, and turns your world grey. You’ve robbed yourself of happiness and you are to blame. You did this to you.”
Exhausted, defeated and alone in a bed that he’d rented.