Just a short narrative of sorts...

[Vespyr]

The exact moment when reality seemed to fade away is unclear to me; everything had appeared detached and like a dream. Minute particles of my thoughts and reason floated aimlessly in th abyss of my mind. I had no recollection of each moment that passed and time was like a dull grey cloud drifting across the night sky.

We sit in silence in the car, each of us gazing blankly out a window at the thousands of others parked around us. People pass by, their eyes dancing hyperly as they search in vain for their own vehicles. Anyone who was quick enough to beat the crowd now sits impatiently in the indefinite line of cars. Traffic is at a complete stand-still as if halted by some unknown force, and will remain this way for the hour. We haven't even bothered to turn on the engine; it lies dormant beneath the hood where my brother and his girlfriend are perched.

Their words are muffled and unclear to me as I stare blithely at my sleeve which is pressed to my cheek. The tone in their voice is familiar, however, and I understand that they are fighting. Feeling yet another pang of hopelessness, I slouch further into my seat, head pressing uncomfortably against the door. I close my eyes and think that maybe I will sleep to pass the time... but I know I'm only kidding myself. My goal is not reached. My eyes remain open, focusing with lost interest on a dull reflection cast off the window from the overhead light. It dims and is gone and my eyes are still locked forward, my mind an empty shell. By now I've tuned out from the cacaphony of outside, the honking and hollering and horrific, butchered rap passing by my ears like solicitors at the front door. The flambouyantly ugly flyers and cards they leave go unregarded and ignored, thrown out with the rest of the waste that clutters my mind.

Ryan offers his thigh as a pillow with a conspicuous desire to be nearer, but I refuse with silent aggravation. I unlace my combat boots and struggle out of them before clambering ungracefully into the trunk. I land amidst forgotten boxes, coats, bookbags and miscellaneous paraphernalia with a grunt. It is not the most comfortable of resting places, but at least I can escape from Ryan's ever-present gaze.

Eyes lost somewhere in the shadows creeping across the ceiling, I forget where I am for awhile. I am thinking dismally about the same thing I always do in times like this... the contemplation of the end. Is this the big one? Have Sean and Sarah finally had enough of eachother? It is such an awful situation that I find it unbearable to comprehend the possiblities... Like watching one's home country being demolished by constant warfare, the tears in my eyes will go unspoken of, I must watch sorrowfully as my planets crash down, into nothing but dust.

As I am wallowing in my thoughts, my hands rummage aimlessly behind my head and my fingers brush against what feels like a rope. I undo the knots and tangles and fashion it into a noose and dangle the thing over the back of the seat. Ryan scoffs. I pull it back and am quiet awhile, helplessly drowning in apprehension. He wants to talk, I do not.

An eternity, a lifetime, each minute long and dreary, has passed before the distant sound of moving cars catches my attention. I squirm amongst the trunk's other inhabitants and sit up in a dazed manner. The morbid rope falls into my lap as I glance around, the dread in my heart throbbing more painfully when my eyes do not fall upon the two bodies on the hood of the car. With a meek and defeated voice, I ask Ryan where they have gone; he does not know. Where, in a parking lot overflowing with tens of thousands of impatient cars, could they have gone to? And then, with a flare of anxiety, I see them standing amidst a mass of moving cars a few hundred yards away. Sean looks jumpy, making countless angry gestures, his thin body towering like a hunched giant as he does so. Sarah is standing still, her back to me, and she looks so frail and small compared to him; his words and carelessness have deflated her. She looks helpless, much how I am feeling, but I am ashamed that I compare myself to her.

When Ryan asks what is going on, I only procede to stare in silent agony at the scene. The windshield is a movie screen, and on it plays the story of my life; I can only watch, hopeless. I do not move for ten minutes. At last I slip the noose over my head and lie back down in the trunk; answer enough, my friend. I cannot speak for fear of crying.

At last, my brother and my best friend return to the car, and I feel their bitter, tragedy-induced presence as soon as the two doors slam shut, reverberating like shellfire on a battlefield. Followed by a silence of sorrow. The soldiers lie dead in the trenches, their hearts have been blown to pieces. Who is to blame but their comrades themselves; bickering leads to battling and eventually to the death of us all. Sometimes, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Centuries of lifelessness later, the car glides along the freeway with disappointment emanating from the exhaust pipes the whole way home. Occasionally, Ryan moves a hand to run his grubby fingers along my shoulder with means to comfort, but I only sink forther away from him to escape. He is the last person I want to be trapped in the awkward silent confines of a small car with. I suffer every moment with my head leaning against the cold window. I feel like I'm having a bad dream. This is a surreal labyrinth, the walls are strengthened by emotion, the lower one feels buried in the mud, higher climb the walls that are like a prison.

Nothing makes sense. Buildings pass by intermittently, hovering eerily in the foreground. They loom from the fog and then are gone as we race by in hopes that the sooner we are home the better, when we can each suffer on our own instead of being cooped together like this. The world, an unwelcoming yellow-gray blur of mist, is whirling by but we are caught in the undertow. This is a strange sort of dream, one that I won't be waking from soon.