short story: quiver part four (final part)

Speckles of raindrops fall from a moody grey sky onto a barren field. Dawn shivers and creates a frozen, dewy surface on the earth.

Henry wakes to Alena’s snoring. Her bare breast is exposed, and her head is tilted back, her mouth wide open. Henry’s nude body shivers at the thought of last night. He gets out of his bed and walks quietly to the living room, mindful not to wake Alena.

He stares at the dark man before him through the reflection of the sliding glass doors leading to the small balcony. Icy air rushes down his throat as he opens the doors. Henry leans his body over the railing. He can hear the laughter of children at the bottom, beckoning him to yield to his dreams of falling.

What separates life and death from one another when one feels dead while alive? Life is death, he thinks. Perhaps this means death is life, that it is filled with sun, with hope. Or perhaps death is just death, and life is death, and we merely pretend to live in 'life' and death is the time we can just let go and be. But why do flowers grow in spring, why are babies created if life is not really life? His hair and eyelashes have become dusted with sheer drops of rain. He closes his eyes. A sigh escapes his throat and Henry retreats from the railing.

He walks back to the bedroom, to his life.

He will live, whatever and wherever that is, and pretend he is happy, pretend that he does not dream of death, and mimic all that they do.