Out.

Sitting on the decade-old swing on the porch, she watched the gloomy clouds threaten to take over the town with a tremendous amount of rainfall.

Before retrieving the car keys and after discarding the remains of the ice cream a neighbor gave her, she carelessly wiped her cheeks.

What a mess she has made on her face, letting the salt mix with the sweet. Even so, it’s lesser a mess than what her life turned out to be.

Echo.

And I believed it to be banished years ago. But this morning resurrected what I call a rarity.

No, it wasn’t from imminent death that I forced myself awake. It was betrayal, immediately done after a smile. It was disappointment, magnified with spiteful words and judging eyes.

Such a rarity, this waking up and tears packed together like a special yet strange offer I’ve passed by again and again.

Somehow, it ended up in my hands, without a forewarning.

Life Without.

That one day took it all away, leaving you alive but not living. Like your spirit has flown away; like your heart and soul had gone with the current. A husk that rings hollow, a shell, nothing more. A body abandoned, left only with ghosts of what used to be; at present, a being sapped of its purpose, its strength.

Your eyes lost their luster, as stars do when they fade quietly in the dark. Laughter seems distant, even unknown now. You smile without vibrancy. Your words are spoken in monotony, not the usual variety.

They find it painful to look you in the eye even if you dare to do. They fear for what they might see lying beneath the surface. They fear that they’d feel pity. They fear for they might sympathize and you might not take it so kindly.

I hope you find at the end of the tunnel, the fragment of light; your fragment of life.