What started out as an attempt for self-isolation has - shifted.
The night air presses dark and chill against his skin. He packed jackets, packed a sleeping bag, packed food, packed water, but when the pitch-dark of the Halloween night closes over the sky in full, none of that supplies will be found with him. None of it made the trip. There's only the quiet rustle of leaves crunching underfoot, the soft puff of white breath misting the air as he walks, and the occasional snap-click of a sparking lighter as he touches flame to cigarette and breathes deep.
The pale, fat water balloon of the moon peers out from between the dark unfurling of the branches overhead. Unless there's anyone else out here - and there shouldn't be, but with an event like this, who can say? - there's nothing to signify Tim's presence but the occasional dappling of moonlight across his shoulders and the dark of his hair and the faint orange pinprick of a lit cigarette. Too many of the trees jut out sharply like broken rib-bones.
He keeps walking.
Straight out. Straight out, and that's all it'll take. There was a story she used to tell him, one about - about pirates, and runaway boys, and taking directions. Second star to the left?
His memory was never the kindest thing about him. There's nothing kind about him at all. There's just the lies he carries heavy in his chest and the burn of truth along the flat of his tongue, and the inevitability of where his pathway takes him now.
To the very edge. To the very end of all of it. Until there's no one left to utter those unwanted truths at all.
It'll just be twenty-four hours. He'll be fine. And it'll be easy. Easier and kinder than a bullet to the gut, than the crack of a skull against cement, than a knife to the throat, than the shearing blaze of mnemonic erasure in real time, than any of the unkindnesses he's inflicted on others, than any of the fates he deserves.
OPEN to ALL; this may be our last chance to leave this place; CW SUICIDE IDEATION
The night air presses dark and chill against his skin. He packed jackets, packed a sleeping bag, packed food, packed water, but when the pitch-dark of the Halloween night closes over the sky in full, none of that supplies will be found with him. None of it made the trip. There's only the quiet rustle of leaves crunching underfoot, the soft puff of white breath misting the air as he walks, and the occasional snap-click of a sparking lighter as he touches flame to cigarette and breathes deep.
The pale, fat water balloon of the moon peers out from between the dark unfurling of the branches overhead. Unless there's anyone else out here - and there shouldn't be, but with an event like this, who can say? - there's nothing to signify Tim's presence but the occasional dappling of moonlight across his shoulders and the dark of his hair and the faint orange pinprick of a lit cigarette. Too many of the trees jut out sharply like broken rib-bones.
He keeps walking.
Straight out. Straight out, and that's all it'll take. There was a story she used to tell him, one about - about pirates, and runaway boys, and taking directions. Second star to the left?
His memory was never the kindest thing about him. There's nothing kind about him at all. There's just the lies he carries heavy in his chest and the burn of truth along the flat of his tongue, and the inevitability of where his pathway takes him now.
To the very edge. To the very end of all of it. Until there's no one left to utter those unwanted truths at all.
It'll just be twenty-four hours. He'll be fine. And it'll be easy. Easier and kinder than a bullet to the gut, than the crack of a skull against cement, than a knife to the throat, than the shearing blaze of mnemonic erasure in real time, than any of the unkindnesses he's inflicted on others, than any of the fates he deserves.
All he has to do is keep walking.