FROM JANUARY 24th, 2021…
Exhausted, Sam stopped and stared at the setting sun. Though slouching and small, even the most pitiable and pathetic men cast infinite shadows just before twilight.
The long night is near, and soon there will be no light left to carry on. Sam hasn’t the strength nor the will left to make it to morning. Not this time. He’s let himself become so riddled with disease contracted through self-induced abuse and neglect that his own drug-enhanced immune system turned on him and began hungrily consuming the still functioning remnants of his organs. His feeble heart, now unable to supply adequate blood to his extremities, has left his emaciated limbs to act as mere props for their counterparts.
Just for a moment, Sam’s frantic, deluded mind slowed and snapped to that last sliver of light arcing over the horizon. Finally able to hear above the scratching sinusoid oscillating within his skull, he listened to the silence. His nephews, distraught and despondent, began abandoning him hours before, wandering directionless in every direction. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been alone, but he knew they weren’t coming back.
As the last bright point of light pierced his raptured retinae, he could clearly see that this day, his day, was finally coming to an end. He had just enough strength to snatch his suddenly fluttering fear out of the air, swiftly pocket it, and begin carefully counting his belabored breath.
Inhale. One. He tried to remember their faces, but he had made a point of not looking at them. Not ever, and certainly not directly. Exhale.
Inhale. Two. What remains? He sold his inheritance for pennies, spending it with an effeminate effervescence on ephemeral exuberance, the echoes of which rapidly evanesced. Exhale.
Inhale. Three. He’d never considered tomorrow. He couldn’t picture himself there, or imagine anything other than today. Twilight. Exhale. Darkness.
The Sun will rise, but Sam will not see a new dawn. The next day will belong to a new man. Who, or what, will reign over tomorrow?
Try, cousin, to sleep. Though the night ahead will be long and cold, if you keep your fire burning and stay close to the light, we may rest tonight to wrest tomorrow.
Whether you rise with the sun or toil beneath it, you must still make it to dawn.
It’ll be there, but will we?