CARBON ASH

 

All hallowed ground has been debunked by the years. What was holy to a handful of worthless worshippers, is now soil turned under. No ritual will save it, no righteousness will return it to its past glory. Such is the hubris of man, to think his wishes, his desires, for an earthly presence, for life ever after, can endure, when, in fact, it vanishes like a whisper. Time is not our friend. Time does not provide for you, but robs you instead, and you don't make a difference in its path. It’s the freight you didn't see coming, the fate you’d hoped to avoid, by some deranged strategy, you’re left standing on the tracks with nowhere to leap but the void. Some chose the void, some chose the freight, but it's an outcome one can't avoid.  

Comfort didn't visit Antwan. No reason to, really, because Antwan was cast as a throwaway, a life discarded, best put out with garbage. Antwan didn't have high expectation, which is a good thing because fate didn't have the time to compensate for any injustice. Injustice is a random, relative term, with no bearing on his reality. He'd contact three diseases by the time he was eight, none left his body. He was bound to bear their burden for the remainder of his short-lived life. He walked hunched and bent, survived on the scraps of society, and dreams of either flying…or dying…sometimes both, in the same dream. He’d made a conscious effort to stop…stop dreaming… But it failed him.

And when the reaper called late that night, it was a dream, and in that dream, he lived on.

V