The man walked through the dark woods with a flashlight
For a second he turned his flashlight off
The forest possessed A black so definite, so unequivocal, it astonished him
The darkness provided a balance that soothed him
The forest was courteously still
The man felt calm until a certain feeling came over him
It was loneliness
A lonliness so profound the word itself had no meaning
A lonliness exacerbated by the pain of childhood
He remembered his brother wearing a mask of agony
Clutching his chest lying in a pool of blood stained water
He remembered the strange men looking at him as if he filled them with a choking disgust
He remembered the the sterile green cages
Filled with wishbone thin men who had their humanity stripped from them
He remembered the blank faced woman who sat in a cage small enough to contain her greif
He was filled up with a weary anticipation in the months leading up to the war
After the war started he was left hopeless and was left wondering what happened to butterflies
in the winter?
After it was he made a definite commitment to avoid war at all costs
Such evil must be avoided he thought to himself
He turned his flashlight back on and shined it on a fallen redwood tree
In his mind he could hear the thud the tree made when it fell
I’m going down like one of those redwoods he thought to himself
He went down to the edge of the river and tossed a rock in
The pebble splashed and the water darkened and closed quickly
Rivulets of Greif trickled down his eyes
Completely subsumed by darkness
He knew what he had to do
There was not going to be any pain
He took out a revolver, pointed it at his temple, and pulled the trigger
And just like that, he was gone