Remus
Written for Victoria. Based on this icon.
Remus rested against a rough wall. Dawn was just breaking, the pale pink light washing through the wet London streets, making them glisten in that dull, London way. His eyes strained from the light, and he rubbed his palm against his face. Two-day stubble. That’s how long he had been inside. Two days, two nights, empty hours and minutes, empty life, really. It was Monday now, the beginning of a new week. It pulled at him, pulled at him like a cord around his neck. A noose around his neck, more like, and one he could not shed. He wanted to give up, but could not. He wanted to let go, but would not. All he could do was start the new week, go through it, end it in another drunken stupor. Every Monday morning he would meet the dawn here, at the side of his building, smoking the last cigarette in the packet, the last morsel of his cul de sac weekend.
He couldn’t hide, he couldn’t forget, he couldn’t cheat or die. He had to go on, and so he went with the cord, with the noose that dragged him each Monday morning out of his flat and into the street. In a few hours, he would go to the nearest café and buy coffee. He would then go to work, and at night, he would lock up and walk home. And it would go on, each day, each week, each year. Eventually, it would end, but on its own. He had no energy to help it along, just like he had no energy to keep moving; it was all done for him. And so he followed the dawn, his twenty sixth year of existence, his twenty sixth year of being alone. Just another year in another life; just another day for another man.
The sun slowly warmed his back as he walked away.
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