SUNRISE808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzm0KFjA0Td
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“Honey?”808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ08O11t6kF
“Rachael, I don’t have the bloody time to – ” Adam drops his cutlery and throws up his hands.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLqQj4K2eIB
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rachael returns back to her breakfast. With a grunt, Adam returns to his.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9EMLUCteYJ
The rest of the meal passes in silence.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIXd6AMbjCn
The tall, unshaven man rises from his seat and almost trips on a bottle lying on the floor.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYqwc9gBoap
“Idiot!” He yells. “Don’t you ever clean this rotten house up?” He kicks at it forcefully and it smashes against the wall, tiny green crystals cascading onto the ground.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3CFoG7V6rL
Biting her lip: “I try.”808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4xRF6cqLSj
As if satisfied by his outbreak of force, Adam deflates. “Good.”808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGkzp68HIVK
There’s a pause. “…Honey?”808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVy11B27YKP
“For God’s sake, Rachael, what is it?” Adam turns to face his wife.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcEtIJwhnrM
Tentatively, she takes a small packet of white powder out from under the table. “…I found this in your pockets after you passed out last night. Adam, what is this?” Her eyes are wide, worried and pleading.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG7KtxnWgvE
“What do you think it is?” His reply is throwaway; he barely gives the bag a glance.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi6btNbJ4tZ
“Doesn’t it bother you?” She’s sweating: she knows that she might be crossing a line.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwaCIcmsK8C
“Why would it?” His tone of voice already changes; suspicious of her intentions.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxZYdGuwAAZ
“I mean, for him.” She gestures vaguely to the bedroom at the back of the apartment where their son is still sleeping. “I don’t think all of this is good for him… He scratches himself.”808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8U9bzPMMmn
“…And?” Questioning. Provoking. Is this the man she married twenty years ago?808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVH7gphUnta
“I think you shouldn’t drink so much. Or take…” She throws the packet onto the floor. “It’s not good. For you. Or for him.” She gasps, then holds her breath, waiting for the explosion.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTO9q9pv07q
For a moment, everything is frozen – but then it happens – the side of his hand coming into contact with her left cheek.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡncggwzs5IJ
Her cry of pain isn’t registered in Adam’s mind. He’s staring at his hand as if it is somehow dirty, and with a growing feeling of shame he stumbles out of the apartment, but not before grabbing the abandoned bag on the floor.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuK7dcKWFkl
“S***, I’m sorry, Rachael.” But the words are said long after his leaving, leaving his mouth only when he is sitting on the curb of the path outside.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4B5cvMVpIO
Confused, angry, forlorn, ashamed, he curses under his breath. Since when was he like this?808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsKaGMW0VgA
He tears the packet open and pours the contents onto his hand before inhaling them, hating yet relishing the sting up his nostrils.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiXfeuciNLl
He just wants to forget. In his younger and more vulnerable years his father beat him: and every day he asks himself what he did wrong.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvkcTHZzwiW
Dazed, he walks up the street.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡztu6zsAKud
It hasn’t occurred to him yet that it wasn’t his fault.
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He wakes on something soft. Green. Grass?808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPmmsCJyRQk
His stomach returns the breakfast it so willingly accepted earlier that day (yesterday, perhaps?), bile burning his throat as the liquid leaves his mouth.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUWPpgDyuyz
Rachael. Beautiful Rachael. She was upset about something. She’s always upset.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFG9q9x2GgY
He gets up onto his knees. “Rachael!” He yells. Where is she? He wants to say something to her. Something he hasn’t said to her for a long time.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlz01PlOYkG
He laughs in relief when he sees her, standing all the way at the top of the hill.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB5HAQX1jDg
Gone are the creases of worry that lined her face, gone are the tears she often cried.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEPcpv72GRF
And, can he see – or is it just his imagination? – just like the first strands of sunlight dancing over the tops of distant mountains, the faintest of smiles lifting the corners of her lips?808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG4CjcylWtL
“Rachael!” He runs up towards her with all of his dissipating strength, not stopping, not even when his legs protest in pain, he’s rushing towards her open arms, the clouds in the blue sky singing a symphony of joy – he falls into her embrace, feeling her warmth, her happiness, surround him entirely.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgXNOXxhQpP
He whispers into her ear what he never had the courage to say; just a few words, but he can tell how much they mean to her, and finally – finally! – as the sun rises on Icarus Point, her growing smile lights up those final moments, with her laugh outplaying the birds spiraling into the heavens, he knows that she forgives him.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRu7SCdKV75
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diende…
~Ad infinitum~808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMdTdPw9dZv
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