SUNRISE851Please respect copyright.PENANAhxkHDf4PzL
851Please respect copyright.PENANAC7hTPo3Bmr
“Honey?”851Please respect copyright.PENANAQAzbGTIjQ7
“Rachael, I don’t have the bloody time to – ” Adam drops his cutlery and throws up his hands.851Please respect copyright.PENANAZKb5NzRRDj
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rachael returns back to her breakfast. With a grunt, Adam returns to his.851Please respect copyright.PENANAGr9JJM4vPC
The rest of the meal passes in silence.851Please respect copyright.PENANAD5LS6ebLBP
The tall, unshaven man rises from his seat and almost trips on a bottle lying on the floor.851Please respect copyright.PENANAxBVcdASJVi
“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.851Please respect copyright.PENANAVtq82qqhR9
Biting her lip: “I try.”851Please respect copyright.PENANArGv1wc9IBl
As if satisfied by his outbreak of force, Adam deflates. “Good.”851Please respect copyright.PENANA84gcvBRaeA
There’s a pause. “…Honey?”851Please respect copyright.PENANAioes1zNst8
“For God’s sake, Rachael, what is it?” Adam turns to face his wife.851Please respect copyright.PENANA1Spl891OeO
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.851Please respect copyright.PENANApybgEbK43m
“What do you think it is?” His reply is throwaway; he barely gives the bag a glance.851Please respect copyright.PENANANnkWEf3fhF
“Doesn’t it bother you?” She’s sweating: she knows that she might be crossing a line.851Please respect copyright.PENANAoTkdZ2oU9I
“Why would it?” His tone of voice already changes; suspicious of her intentions.851Please respect copyright.PENANAJBHHt8ZzaO
“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.”851Please respect copyright.PENANAxCdjLOdI8B
“…And?” Questioning. Provoking. Is this the man she married twenty years ago?851Please respect copyright.PENANA4svD9fr4td
“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.851Please respect copyright.PENANADFN8c87nNT
For a moment, everything is frozen – but then it happens – the side of his hand coming into contact with her left cheek.851Please respect copyright.PENANAk8XEiAdata
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.851Please respect copyright.PENANAhMsUb8LHZI
“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.851Please respect copyright.PENANABtZczMOv2N
Confused, angry, forlorn, ashamed, he curses under his breath. Since when was he like this?851Please respect copyright.PENANAmP8BHQHqhM
He tears the packet open and pours the contents onto his hand before inhaling them, hating yet relishing the sting up his nostrils.851Please respect copyright.PENANAQNrSU3VkLh
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.851Please respect copyright.PENANAraPDRNxNfL
Dazed, he walks up the street.851Please respect copyright.PENANAsNebm0FrXJ
It hasn’t occurred to him yet that it wasn’t his fault.
851Please respect copyright.PENANAFFOFZL7T43
He wakes on something soft. Green. Grass?851Please respect copyright.PENANAhfzW9mcnVV
His stomach returns the breakfast it so willingly accepted earlier that day (yesterday, perhaps?), bile burning his throat as the liquid leaves his mouth.851Please respect copyright.PENANAbTQ7FB0gOb
Rachael. Beautiful Rachael. She was upset about something. She’s always upset.851Please respect copyright.PENANAPSAAzhKW3X
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.851Please respect copyright.PENANAS1yfgv2gsO
He laughs in relief when he sees her, standing all the way at the top of the hill.851Please respect copyright.PENANAbn9D8cAiKl
Gone are the creases of worry that lined her face, gone are the tears she often cried.851Please respect copyright.PENANAHmB1pZvR0M
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?851Please respect copyright.PENANAZxsTI1DakA
“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.851Please respect copyright.PENANAvjeGazMWjs
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.851Please respect copyright.PENANAazZSlTFttA
851Please respect copyright.PENANA3GF3Olsj2I
diende…
~Ad infinitum~851Please respect copyright.PENANAEaKWwZbcNL
851Please respect copyright.PENANAJxjIa4rvJi