Counting Reality

A week?

A day?

An hour?

No. A minute.

That’s how fast your world can come crashing down.

You know those walls you had built around yourself? Hoping that no one could break through them? Yeah those. They can shatter to the ground. In a minute.

Those moments; those infinite moments full of truth, when you have to face reality. Not only face it, but surrender to it.

The light dances in front of your eyes, before a sharp ray of darkness hits it, smashing it to a million pieces. The darkness starts consuming everything. It’s about to attack you, and you raise your shield up, you hide behind your walls, but then reality hits you like a big, heavy truck, and those walls come spiralling down.

It’s all going to end.

June 13th, 2003. That’s the day my own personal reality slapped me across my face. My world was set on fire. A fire that could kill; burning everything in its reach.

And now I’m drowning in it. This hell. This un-navigable hell.

Five. . .

“Be good Monroe,” he had said to me, crouching down in front of my small figure, holding me tenderly in his arms. I didn’t know these moments would be the last, so I didn’t cherish them as much as I needed to.

He pulled back slightly, staring into the very depths of my eyes, as if looking for my truths and innermost feelings.

Four. . .

I saw him as he stood up, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth open, panting husky breaths.

I saw him as he closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.

I saw him as he pulled out the revolver, the metal heavy in his hand.

Three. . .

I saw him as he brought the gun up to his head, looking me dead in the eye, sweat rolling down the side of his face.

Two. . .

“Be good.”

Those were the last words that escaped his lips before his finger pressed onto the trigger.

One. . .

I shrieked out loud as I witnessed this horrific sight. The shrill sound echoed in the room, as it replaced the unmistakeable ‘bang’ of a gunshot.

He collapsed onto the cold linoleum floor, eyes closed and the gun dropping from his hand, as his own blood pooled around his lifeless body.

Zero.

~ Aarya Sohal