The Boy woke up to the greyness.
Looking around he saw that his entire world had become a mist that swirled around him, causing a ringing in his head as he tried to gather his senses. His eyes were blurred with sleep and as he looked down he saw that he was still wearing the black hoodie, grey sweatpants, and white socks that he had fallen asleep in.
Am I still asleep? he wondered as the wind blew beneath him.
He clenched his fists and felt the sharpness of his uncut nails dig into his palm. The pain felt real. He rubbed the remaining crust out of the corners of his eyes and searched the air around him. It was an endless world of rain clouds and below his feat he could hear a steady rain falling down to Earth. Far off he could hear the rumble of thunder and before he could bring himself to his feet, lightning flashed and illuminated the clouds around him into purple silhouettes.
The Boy could feel his heart racing underneath his hoodie and noticed the tightening of his trachea as he sat bewildered in the sky. He tried to breath slowly through his nose (the way his therapist had taught him in order to prevent an oncoming panic attack) but the sheer expanse of his suspended isolation had taken hold of his brain and was now ridding him of all calm and logical thinking. He felt as though he was breathing through a hosepipe, and the less air he managed to inhale, the more his mind began to fall into a state of instability.
He got up and began to whirl around, hoping that over his shoulder there would appear something capable of explaining what was happening to him. He spun rapidly, the clouds feeling as though they were suffocating him, and so he started to scream.
'Hello,' the Boy yelled. 'Anyone. Please. Help me.' There was no answer to his cries besides the wind, rain, and another crack of lightning that caused his ribs to vibrate.
Dizzy and desperate, the Boy began to run. He could not tell where he was going, yet he felt that he had to try and escape the confines of the storm he had found himself in. As he sprinted he could feel moisture clinging to his skin, dampening his clothes and mixing with the panic-induced sweat that was seeping out of his pores. He screamed again. He screamed out for his wife who was still asleep far below. He screamed out for his mother who was crying herself awake. Then he screamed out for his father, hoping that perhaps the dead man could hear him now.
The Boy sprinted through the sky for minutes that felt like days and yet nothing around him changed. In defeat and exhaustion he keeled over, placing his hands upon his knees, and let the storm continue to rage on around him. He turned his head up to where the stars were hidden and wondered just how high up he was.
Then he wondered where in the sky he was. He wondered this because he hoped that when the storm eventually cleared, he would at least be visible to his family below and they would be able to help him.
As he pondered his location, the thought of being in the path of a plane crossed his mind.
Would a plane even notice me if it flew past?
The image of a commercial jet hurtling towards his exact location filled him with dread as his brain illuminated an image of his body being engulfed by the plane's engine.
I've got to get down.
He knelt down and waved his hand through the grey moisture beneath his feet, thinking that maybe he could clear a hole in the clouds big enough for him to see the world below. Yet as much as he waved and cupped his hands through the mist, no sign of his planet would appear. There was no knowing where he was, and his mind had no idea of where he was supposed to go. A strange claustrophobia had begun to sink into his skin. He tried to clear away his fears and conjure a plan, but it felt as though the atmosphere around him was sucking out all the hope and optimism he had stored in his soul. He began to feel as though the clouds were entering his brain, blurring his thoughts and freezing his synapses. His whole body began to chill and shiver as his surroundings took control of him.
'Not far to go,' a voice uttered from behind a grey wall of cloud. It sounded familiar but the Boy could not give it a face. His body was shaking violently as he turned towards where he thought the voice was coming from, hoping that its body would reveal itself.
Above him, the Boy could hear the wind begin to carry the sound of a lullaby that he had heard often as a child. The tune of the song was off and he could not remember the words that went with the music, and yet it filled his heart with a nostalgic longing that took his mind back to infancy.
'One need only ascend,' the voice said.
'Ascend to where?' the Boy asked.
'Everywhere.' The music of the lullaby grew louder and the Boy felt his knees give in. He fell forward onto the surface of whatever was suspending him in the sky and felt the presence of the voice float above him into the greyness above. He tried to turn his head up to see it leave, but his neck had become locked and he could only stare down at the clouds beneath.
The tune of the song that had once soothed him as baby grew louder in the air around him, and just before the Boy could put words to its tune and picture the face of the one who had first sung it to him, he fell into a dark and dreamless sleep.
When the Boy opened his eyes, all was quiet. There was no wind blowing and the rain had ceased falling below. The cloudiness in his brain had subsided but the world around him remained covered in grey. He did not know for how long he had been asleep, but his skin felt warm and his clothes were dry.
Closing his eyes, The Boy tried to remember the events that preceded his slumber, but his memory felt disjointed, like a hungover teeneager trying to put together the events of the night before. He could remember fragments of a song that now filled him with an incomprehensible sadness as it wrapped itself around his heart.
He closed his eyes and tried to take himself back to the days of his early life, but all his imagination could do was travel through darkness and bring up faceless voices in his ears that told him to ascend.
The Boy opened his eyes, turned his head to the darkness above, and wondered what this all meant. He had, through means that he could not comprehend, found himself trapped in the sky, and had been told by invisible voices to go higher.
He tried to take his mind back to the moment before he arrived in the sky. He saw flashes of his wife sleeping next to him, her breath steady as she dreamed. He remembered as he stared at her, feeling a discomfort as though something inside inside of him were missing and was calling to him from a place he could not see. Then he saw the face of his parents and his memory went dark.
The Boy stared motionless into the distance as he contemplated the options that he had in going forward. He knew now that running and screaming was futile. But he also felt as though he could not stay where he was. The suffocating feeling that the clouds induced in him seemed to grow whenever he was still, and even if moving did not take him anywhere, he preferred the slight respite it gave him compared to his current anxiety.
So he got to his feet and began to walk, feeling a warmth greet his face as he did so. Looking up he saw a bright silhouette hovering behind the clouds. Within the greyness the Boy had somehow forgot about the existence of the sun and now he smiled at it earnestly as its blurred rays brushed his face. He decided that he would walk in the direction of the setting sun, using it as a guide to ensure that he did not end up walking in circles.
As he walked, he tried once more to revisit the events from the previous evening that had lulled him into sleeping. He listened to the faceless voice that swirled around his consciousness, hoping for more clues.
'Not far to go,' it said once more.
Not far from where? Am I going in the right direction? He pondered if whether as he took each step he was being carried higher, as though the wind from underneath him was slowly pushing him upwards into space. Given the monotony of his surroundings there could be no telling if he was going up or down, or merely levitating at the same altitude that he had been since he woke up.
He wondered if there was anything waiting for him at the end of all of this. Or if was he going to walk on endlessly in some kind of nonsensical limbo. He hoped ever so slightly that what he longed for might be up here somewhere. Watching from behind a rain cloud. Waiting for him. Now is not the time for fantasy, the Boy told himself as he shut out the grief of his past and the yearnings that it gave him. He would not allow himself to become hopeful over what he knew could not happen, despite where he now found himself. So he shook his head to clear his mind and decided that all he would do from that point on was walk and try not speculate over any potential reason for why he was where he was.
This could still be a dream, the Boy thought, not really believing himself.
The sun was now reaching the hidden horizon ahead, making the Boy realise just how long he had been walking. He remained covered by clouds, but as he stopped to take in a cold breath, he noticed that the colour beneath his white running socks was lighter than before.
He did not now if this was just a trick being played by his mind or whether in fact the clouds had indeed changed colour. But peering down at the surface below, he could not eject the feeling of hope that those whiter clouds seemed to give him.
His body was not tired despite his long trek, and so he decided to continue walking, hoping that if he could walk just a little further, the clouds would grow gradually thinner and eventually open to reveal what lay beneath.
He walked and watched the circle of sunlight before him begin to creep, sliver by sliver, over the horizon. As darkness began to develop behind him, the Boy could feel a gentle dread beginning to make its way into his mind. He did not know what the night would bring, but somehow he felt, or on some level even knew, that there would be something lurking in the places that he could not see. The feeling reminded him of when he was small, lying awake in his childhood bedroom, staring at a gap in the curtains and imagining that an evil creature was staring at him in the darkness. Waiting for him to fall asleep before it devoured his soul.
With fear growing steadily inside of him, the Boy felt an urgent desire to run towards the sun, to extend its presence with him as long as possible, but the logical side of his brain knew that he could not outrun the onset of the night. He stared at the final slice of sun as it crossed over the horizon and instantly felt all warmth leave his body.
The clouds darkened with the steady absence of light and the Boy could do nothing but stand and witness his world turn black.
He could not see anything, only hear the rhythmic beating of his heart and the sound of warm breath escaping out his open mouth.
Victim to the darkness, he lowered himself down and wondered if perhaps he would be able to sleep to pass the time till dawn. He lay upon the air and closed his eyes, yearning for his mind to take him into a world of dreams far away from he lay. But the more he tried to tire his brain, the more electric it began to feel. It was as though a switch had been flicked on in his imagination and was now sending a current into his memory, projecting blurry images of the past into the eyes of the his mind.
In bright flashes, images of the Boy's family arrived behind his eyelids in the form of muddled silhouettes. He saw the shape of his brother, standing alone and shouting words that the Boy could not understand. He watched as his mother drifted lazily into the picture. He could tell just by the shape of her presence that she was crying. The Boy knew the exact reason for her sadness, but before he could offer her words of comfort, the shadow of his kin began to peel apart, leaving fragments of their memory scattered across the Boy's mind as he watched on in discomfort. All around the blurriness of his brain he could make out pieces of his loved ones, broken and disfigured, calling out to one another. In this confusion the Boy tried to pull the fragments of his past back together. Clenching his jaw in concentration, he attempted to merge his memories.
He connected his mother's smile to the deep laughter of his brother. He watched the two figures collide with one another, every aspect of their construction becoming a moment in their collective past.
With an effort that rid the Boy of his breath, he moulded all the moments together into a single thought. An image that wasn't quite a memory but rather a hopeful premonition. An image of the father he had lost that he hoped to see once more. He saw the man's hazle eyes stare back at him. He saw the sweat dripping from his oily brow and could even catch a whiff of the Old Spice roll on that he applied every day. The old man smiled with dry lips and the Boy could feel tears seeping out of his shut eyes. He watched his father's mouth open, but before he could the hear words that he had been craving for 2 years to hear, a bright light opened his eyes and brought him back to the sky.
After drying his tear-filled eyes, the Boy could now see a clear, starless sky above him, consisting only of a crescent moon on the horizon. It shone with such intensity that the Boy could only stare at it for a few seconds before having to avert his gaze. But even when not looking directly at it, the Boy could feel the moon emitting an unmistakable force of attraction towards him.
He felt himself being called to the moon, and although at first he felt an anger inside of him at having been brought out of his dream, he could not help but think that somehow the pull of the moon and the image of his dead father were somehow connected. Deep inside of him he felt as though his father was playing some part in all of this.
'Ow, fuck,' the Boy yelled as something sharp and wooden collided with his left knee. Turning, he was greeted by the sight of an empty row boat floating upon a sea of clouds. Inside of the raft lay two ores resting against opposite sids of the boat and the Boy could hear a faint creaking in the wood as it rocked gently from side to side.
'Will you be taking me for a ride or not?' the boat asked. 'I haven't got all evening and their are others up here who require transit.'
Speechless, the Boy felt his legs begin to carry him towards the floating wooden structure. 'There's a good lad. Now hop inside and be careful not to tilt me over. I had an elderly fellow 3 moons ago who capsized me. Took him forever to get me back up right. I was nauseous for 2 weeks after that.'
The Boy gripped the side of the boat, its surface rough and aged, and hoisted himself aboard. It shook roughly, but the Boy was quick to steady himself. 'Very good,' said the boat. The Boy turned his gaze back up to the moon, feeling its pull tighten around his organs. 'Ah, off to the moon are you? Very well then, best start paddling before it disappears.'
'Disappears?' the Boy asked?
'Well you can't expect it to stay up there forever, can you? Come on now, tick tock.' The Boy grabbed an ore in each hand, dipped them into the clouds on either side of the boat, and pulled. They lurched forward gently, the Boy finding it far easier to maneuver a boat on clouds as oppose to water. As he rowed, he kept his gaze fixed upon the glistening moon. It shone pristine in the night sky, its white glow radiating a calm serenity that the Boy could feel both in and around him.
He is there, the Boy thought, an unfamiliar smile curving the corners of his lips. He is calling for me.
He pulled the ores with increasing speed, catapulting the boat closer to the sky's edge where he thought his father was waiting. Tears returned to his cheeks while he paddled and within his mind the image if his father appeared once more.
'Wait for me,' the Boy shouted at the moon. 'I am almost there.' His voice travelled far off into the distance and he heard it echo off of structures that he could not see. He paid the strange returning of his voice no mind and continued to call out to his father as he rowed. 'Please don't disappear. Just wait for me.'
'I would keep for voice down,' uttered the boat.
'Why?'
'Because you never know who may be listening.'
'But I want him to hear me. He needs to know that I am coming.'
'I wasn't talking about him.' Before the Boy could consider who or what the Boat was referring to, a purple rod of lightning as long as the horizon illuminated the night sky. 'Great,' muttered the boat. 'It heard us.'
'What?' asked the Boy, but the Boat did not answer. With a boom of thunder the clouds beneath began to swirl violently, causing the Boat to rock and the Boy to scramble.
Between the moon and the wooden raft, he could see clouds beginning to rise like giant ocean swells filled with fury. It wouldn't be long before the dark waves would come crashing down on the rickety boat. 'Where do we go?' the Boy cried out.
'There is nowhere we can go,' answered the boat. 'You created this storm, now you must endure it.' Freezing cold rain drops the size of cricket balls were pelting down from above and the Boy, trying to keep his gaze on the now fuzzy looking moon, tightened his grip around the ores. If he could not outrun the storm, he would at least try to get as close to the moon as possible before he capsized.
He pulled the ores and felt his legs shake as he tried to navigate through the gale-force wind. The rain was now hitting his face at such a speed that all he could do was stare down at his feet and hope that he was going in the right direction.
'You just had to call out to daddy didn't you?' the Boat cried. 'Now you're going to get us both broken.'
The Boy did not answer the piercing words of the vessel, but tried with all the power his mind would allow to envision what he hoped was still waiting for him at the end of the storm.
'Wait for me,' the Boy shouted, and with the sound of his final word came a gust of wind that knocked him to his knees. Pain graced his left leg as it collided with the floor of the boat.
The Boy cursed and applied pressure where he could now see blood beginning to seep through his sweatpants. All around him the wind was swirling and thunder seemed to be grumbling inside of every cloud.
The wood of the boat began to crack and the Boy felt that his end had come. There. In the sky. Alone and unseen to the world. This was how he was going to disappear from everything.
He rested his head on the rain-soaked deck and gave himself over to the storm. He felt the structure falling apart as they ascended a swell of clouds. The boat tried to say something but its voice was disintegrating. Wood snapped, lightning flashed, and then the sky went silent and the Boy knew that he had reached the summit of the swell. Then he fell.
His body was no longer in contact with the wet wood of the raft. He tried to scream but the thought of perhaps being seconds away from death rid him of the ability to make sound. His hoodie flapped against the back of his neck and he could feel tiny icicles forming on the tips of his eyelashes.
The Boy was shivering and staring down at the dark clouds that awaited him. Yet as he continued to fall he realised that the storm beneath him was not coming any closer. He figured that he was not so much falling as he was hovering in a constant state of descent in which the clouds below remained an exact and unreachable destination.
The air around him passed the Boy by and he could feel the moon drifting further away, and yet still he floated. Unfalling.
He looked around him to see if the boat was in the same state, but he could not find it.
I'm going to fall forever.
He managed in his hovering to turn his body to face where the moon had been and he could feel a shard of his shattered soul escape him.
'Goodbye,' the Boy whispered to the moon. He turned his body back down to the hidden earth, his tears now melting the frozen water that had stuck to his lashes.
He wished that he could be up there with his father. He wished that he had been given time to say all the words he had stored up in his head. He wished that whatever force it was that held him here would have pity on him and grant him the chance to see his father one last time. But instead the world around him began to laugh.
At first it was just giggles travelling through the wind. But as his suspension continued, the wind, rain, and clouds began to jape the Boy with hysteric laugher that quaked the air and spun his body over in endless somersaults.
He rotated over himself uncontrollably as the guttural guffaws grew around him, and amidst the frenzy he could feel invisible eyes staring at him with judgement, frolicking in his pain.
There was nothing that the Boy could do. He tried to close his eyes but the feeling made him sick. He tried to cover his ears with his hands but his arms were paralyzed with the force of his spinning. He even tried to talk to the clouds, to ask them to stop their bullying, but he could not even hear his own words as they left him.
The howling of the sky was now to such an extent that it felt as though it were inside of the Boy's head. He could no longer think, but only heer the jeering and sneering that now penetrated his skin. His mind turned into an inconsistent mixture of physical sensation and warped emotion. The revolutions of his spinning body seemed to quicken, as though an invisible giant had just flicked him with its thumb. His brain quivered and when the Boy blinked, his world went dark.
He knew that he was still falling for he could still feel the wind brushing his skin, but all around him was an absence of light that made him question whether his eyes were still closed.
The Boy tried to feel for his face but his arms were still firmly stuck at his sides given the force of his descent.
For what could have been an endless passage of the time, all the Boy did was fall through the darkness. Then, at the end of a dark corner in space, a door opened to illuminate a passageway in his memory.
He could hear the sound of approaching footsteps growing louder until he felt a presence brush past him. Into his gaze came the back of an overweight figure dressed in clothes that the Boy recognised: a plain blue T-shirt tucked into a pair of old jeans, a black belt, and a pair of running shoes that appeared to be fresh out the box.
As he stared at the back of the figures balding grey head, the Boy felt a strange grief take hold of him, urging him to speak.
'Is that you?' he asked. But the figure did not seem to hear him and so kept walking with its face hidden from view.
About 30 meters in front of the figure appeared a wooden dining table with 4 seats, three of which were occupied by a middle aged woman with thick brunette hair, an olive-skinned 16 year old boy, and a 12 year old version of the Boy.
The figure approached the table and took the empty seat at the head of the table, allowing it to keep its face masked.
The Boy watched as the smiling woman spooned rice and vegetables onto a plate and past it to the old man. She was saying something but they were too far way for the Boy to make out her words.
The figure began to eat along with the family and for a while they sat peacefully whilst enjoying the meal. The Boy could even see his younger self laughing along with his brother as they both took second helpings of roast chicken.
The Boy longed to be that past version of himself. He wanted to crawl into the skin of that 12 year old boy and stare at the face of the man he had lost. But just as his day dream seemed to fill him with warm nostalgia, something shifted in the back of his mind.
The figure began to scream. The sound it made was something that the Boy had only ever heard in war movies - it was that high pitched ringing that occurs just after the explosion of a bomb - and it pulsated all through his world and twisted his stomach.
The Boy watched as the figure flipped over the dinner table and grabbed the olive skinned boy by the throat. The teenager pleaded to be let go as his face began to lose colour. The woman was hurling dinner plates at the figure, trying to get it to let go of her son, but that only seemed to anger it further and cause it to tighten its grip.
'You're going to kill him,' the Boy tried to shout but the words left his mouth in a forced whisper.
He tried to crawl towards the scene, but his body felt as though it were made of marble, anchoring him to the floor.
He watched as his brother pleaded with his final breath and then fell limp at the release of the laughing creature.
The figure without a face stepped over the dead boy and grabbed one of the wooden dining chairs in his right hand, laughing still. The woman was on her knees before him, her eyes filled with tears and fear as she stared at her lifeless child.
Knives, forks and spilled vegetables lay between the woman and the figure, and the Boy watched as the fat creature raised the chair above its head.
The Boy gave one last attempt to scream but no sound would escape him. He closed his eyes, expecting to hear the sound of wood connecting with skull but instead heard a voice that he had not heard in two years and 198 days.
'This is a lie,' it said said.
Opening his eyes, the Boy saw the figure of the old creature turn to reveal its face that was not a face at all. Where eyes, nose and mouth should have been was a vast grey mass that shriveled and shifted as the figure craned its neck.
Staring at the thing before him, the Boy felt a wretched sickness move up his throat. The construction of the figure was a betrayal to the Boy's memory and he could feel anger sifting through each one of his veins. 'Look away,' the familiar voice said, and the Boy felt hands with flaking skin touch his face and gently turn his gaze away from the nightmare.
Standing underneath a yellow light and dressed in the same black tracksuit he had been sleeping in the night he had died was the Boy's father.
He was whole. There was no part of him that was missing like in all of the Boy's past dreams. It was really him and he was smiling his usual awkward yet loveable smile whilst staring down at his shivering son. 'My light will disappear soon. But I have time to say a few things.'
The Boy allowed himself to be cradled in his father's arms whilst he stared up at the face that he had tried to conjure cleary in his mind since the day the 61 year-old man had died.
The skin on his face was dry (as it always was), his hair a balding silver, and a caring gaze sat comfortably in his eyes as he looked down at his son.
The Boy tried to move his arms so as to cup his father's face in his palms, but he found that in this world he still could not move. Moving his lips he found that he could not speak either.
'Only those who have passed can speak here. And we are only given a short time to do so,' the Boy's father said. 'I know that you will have questions, but they cannot be answered. I know you have many things to say that you have thought of endlessly in your grief, but I will never be able to hear them. All that I can do is hold you and tell you of the things that matter most.'
The Boy could see tears resting in his father's eyes, ready to roll down his cheeks as soon as he blinked. It was something the Boy had never seen in all the years that he had been on Earth.
'I am gone, son,' the man continued.' 'This is the only time that you will be able to see me in my entirety before I disappear forever. In many nights to come you will think that you have seen me in your dreams, just like that figure at the dinner table, but those are only distortions of me caused by the anger of your grief. It is not me, and it never will be. You need to understand that. If you look for me, the only place that I can be found is in your past. Most times I will be blurry, but that is the purest version of me that you will ever be able to see. You will not be able to find me in any other place but your memory and the memories of others who knew me. That is where I will dwell. I may not always look or feel the same when you go back in your mind to visit me, but that is how you must go on.'
The yellow light above the crying man began to flicker. He looked up and sighed.
'My time is almost over,' he said, moving his eyes back to his immobile son. 'Now I must ask you to never come looking for me up here again. If you do, I will not be able to save you and you will be stuck in this darkness forever. And the last thing I want is for you to spend the rest of your life in this void waiting for me to appear. Because that will never happen.'
The Boy could feel light fading and darkness growing ever more present in the atmosphere around them. Staring at his father's face he could see the outlines of the old man's facial features beginning to fade. His smile was no longer as pure as it was moments ago and the warmth of his hands upon the Boy's face was steadily dissipating.
Please don't leave me, the Boy could only think to himself. He did not want his father to ever let him go. He did not think he was capable of watching him leave again.
Knowing now that this was indeed the last time the he would ever see him so clearly. The Boy's mind flooded with thoughts and words that he had been restricted to say. He craved the opportunity to express every emotion that his father's death had made him feel. He wanted to tell the man how lonely he felt down in the world. He wanted to tell him how no one really wanted to talk to him about his father's heart attack and how it had left him stranded, isolated, grasping for something whole to hold onto whilst his world fell apart. He wanted to scream out how his mom was breaking down. How his brother had taking to drinking every night instead of talking. And how when he saw the both of them sitting silently in the living room together each night his heart would crack ever more in knowing that now they were just cheap imitations of the people they used to be before they had lost his father. He wanted to blame the man staring at him for all of it. He wanted to ask him why he had died, and whether or not he knew the world that he had left them in. A world where they now felt adjacent to life around them, watching things pass them by in monotonous routines whilst they tried to fill a hole inside of themselves that kept on getting deeper. Then he wanted to tell his father that he loved him and that he would give his soul or anything that the universe demanded in order for the grey haired, slightly plump, somewhat overly sarcastic, selfless and hilarious man to be alive again.
But all the Boy could do was watch as his father continued to fade into darkness and speak his final words.
'I love you, son. Now go back down to your life.' A rain cloud enveloped the remaining figure of the dead man, and as the Boy watched on he felt as though his stomach was shattering like a clay pot falling to the ground. He kept his eyes fixed on where his father had once stood and felt physical sensation and mobility return to his body. His arms began to shudder and he legs twitched. He could feel pins and needles moving across his skin and a thumping in his head that made his eyes water. Breath entered his dry lungs and when he exhaled he found that he could speak.
'Goodbye dad,' the Boy said.
The Boy knew that this time he was truly falling for as soon as he bid farewell to his deceased father, the air below him opened up and gravity began pulling him down at a speed he never thought possible. His head was full of the sound of wind and the disintegrating clarity of his father's image.
The Boy fell through a series of clouds, each a different shade of grey, and felt his clothes dampening from the moisture around him.
He wiped his face as he entered an expanse of whiteness and before he could begin to understand what was truly happening to him, the clouds opened up and he could see the world appear below. The ocean lay sprawled like a giant pool to his right, and on the left stretched the vineyards and mountain range that he had grown up exploring.
He understood then that in all likelihood he was falling towards the home that he had fell asleep in however many nights ago before he woke up in the clouds.
By the position of the sun he could tell that it was early morning and he wondered if his wife was still asleep, if his mother was already wiping tears from or eyes, and whether his brother was already on the treadmill so as to continue evading the desperation inside his head.
Cars, streetlights and people were now in view and the Boy could feel a warmth from the rising sun touch his skin as it cast a shadow of the mountain over the house he was falling towards.
He could feel dread building up inside of him as the real world approached, his mind wondering what was going to happen when his body made contact with the ground.
The clouds were now far above him and he could hear the sound of buzzing traffic and shouting hawkers in nearby streets. He knew that he was seconds from crashing, and so he closed his eyes, clenched his jaw and braced himself for impact just as a bark from his neighbour's dog vibrated his ear drums.
The Boy lay upon the balcony of his childhood home.
His body had been shattered into millions of pieces and he could feel shards of organs and skin calling out to one another as they begged to be reconnected.
When he opened his eyes, he found that he was staring down at the brokenness of his construct. It seemed as though upon crashing, his mind had separated from his physical body and now he was looking down at the unfathomable shattering of his being.
The sun was reflecting upon the shards of his body, but he could not feel its warmth, nor any other physical sensation. All that he had was the fear that circulated in the space outside of himself that stared down at the balcony floor.
What will they do when they see me?
The last thing he wanted was for his family to see him in this broken state, especially his mother.
He wished in that moment for a breeze to wisp him off the balcony and into the garden below. Away from the eyes of his loved ones and their worries. He did not want to be a cause for more pain in their hearts. He only wanted them to heal, and the sight of all his separated pieces would only rescind their feelings into the despair they had been trying to pull themselves out of.
But no wind would come, and the Boy lay stagnant, hovering in a universe he was comprehending less and less as time passed.
The neighbors dog barked again and he could hear someone down the street rolling their dustbins out onto their driveway to be collected by the garbage truck.
From inside the house he heard the sound of a kettle boiling.
Someone was up and he wondered who it might be. Then he heard the radio switch on and knew it must be his mother, as she was the only one in the family who still liked to listen to the morning news on the local station.
Just as an ad came on for low-cost car insurance, the Boy heard the voice of his wife.
'Good moning,' she said in a tired voice.
'Hello dear,' his mother replied. 'Sleep okay?'
'Strange dreams as usual, but otherwise fine.
'Coffee?
'Please.'
There was the sound of water being poured into mugs and Katy Perry singing Teenage Dream on the radio.
'Have you seen Brett? The Boy's wife asked. 'He wasn't in bed when I woke up.'
'No, perhaps he went for a run?'
'His running shoes are still in the room.'
'Brett,' his mother called out for the whole house to hear. And the house greeted her with another chorus of pop music.
'Hmm,' his wife uttered. 'I'll check out back, maye he has his headphone on.'
The Boy heard his wife get up and open the back door to the courtyard that lead to the garage. For a minute or two the radio played and the Boy wished that he could be whole and walk through the balcony door to greet his mother, but then his wife returned to speak the inevitable.
'He's not there either, and both cars are still in the garage.'
Just blow me away. The Boy pleaded to whatever might be listening. They shouldn't have to see me like this.
It would be moments before one of them came out here and he could not stand the image that his mind was formulating of the look on his mothers face when she eventually found him. Inside he could even sense the womans growing discomfort at not knowing where he was.
'Brett,' he heard his mom call out again as she got up. He could hear fear reveal itself in the way she said his name. He heard footsteps in the hallway and lights being turned on. He could picture his wife staring at the old women, scared of the panic that would rise exponentially the longer he remind hidden. 'Where are you love?' she shouted.
He heard her opening doors around the house and calling his name over and over, her voice becoming more shrill with each iteration of the name she had given him. He could hear his wife trying to calm the situation with possibilities of where he might be, but each one sounded unlike anything the Boy would ever do and thus did nothing to wash away the tense atmosphere that was growing throughout the household.
He heard another door open and his brother shouting.
'What are you doing?' the 30 year-old man yelled, clearly having been woken up by his mother turning on his bedroom light.
'Have you seen your brother?' the ladies asked in unison.
'Yeah, he's in the cupboard.'
'Don't!' his mother yelled and the Boy could tell that she was starting to cry.
'Jesus mom, it was just a joke. What's going on?'
'We can't find your brother,' the Boy's wife answered. 'The cars are both still here and so are his running shoes.'
'Have you called Finn? Maye they made a plan?' Finn was the Boy's best and only friend besides his wife.
'Finn's away for work the whole month,' said his wife.
'Oh god,' cried out the Boy's mom, now entering a full state of panic.
'Mom, it's okay. I'm sure he is somewhere.'
'You don't know that!' the woman yelled. 'What if something happened to him.' She was pacing the room by the sounds of it, her mind most likely displaying all the worst case scenarios of what could have happened to her son.
The Boy wondered if her mind would be able to fathom the pulverised version of her child that now lay upon the balcony.
This is going to destroy her.
He could hear cupboards being opened frantically and the growing wails of his grieving mother.
'We need to find him. We need to find him. Brett. Brett. Where are you, boy. BREEEETTT!' Instead of trying to calm her down, which they probably knew by now was impossible, the brother and wife of the Boy joined in the search and he heard them exit the bedroom.
Over their shouting of his name he could hear his mother's voice clearly in the stud - the one room that still belonged to his father even after his death.
'Please. Please he can't be gone. He can't be gone.' The Boy imagined that she was staring at the photo of his father that they had placed upon his desk. The same photo that his mother would speak to every evening before she went to bed. The Boy could see in his mind the image of his mother as she held the photo of his father smiling upon his mountain bike, pleading with it for her son to be safe. 'You can't take him. I need him.' Rapid inhales were now interspersed with each word that she spoke. 'Please - I - can't - lose - another - one - of - you.'
The Boy could do nothing whilst his mother cried out except stare at the pieces of him that were now beginning to crystalise in the sunlight.
Dread was the only feeling that his mind was comprehending and it was growing to an unstable level as he imagined the sounds his mother would make when she saw the broken and deformed creature that he had become. He wanted to escape.
He wanted in that moment to leave his consciousness and avoid the terror that the discovery of his body would bring. He wanted to escape it all and rid them of the collective suffering they would have to endure when attempting to put him back together. He wanted to get away from his mother's cries that would carry on for years whenever she thought about what she had lost. He wanted it all to be over. He wanted to save them. To spare them. He wanted to be gone.
'Oh, there you are,' he heard his wife say as she opened the sliding door that led out to the balcony. 'Let's get you inside and fix you up.'
He felt her warm hands sweep up the entirety of his being in a single swoop. He tried to say something but his voice and mind were still disconnected.
'It's okay honey, you don't have to explain.' Slowly he felt his mind sinking. He began to experience electricity moving through his synapses as mind and body began to reconnect. Pins and needles covered his skin as veins transferred blood to his arteries. Breath filled his lungs and he inhaled life like a cold and refreshing beverage.
Blinking, he stared up at the face of the person he loved most in the world as she smiled down at him.
'Let's get some tea in you,' she said.
'Is that him?' the Boy heard his mother ask.
'Yip,' I found him on the balcony.
'Oh good,' she answered in a calm and gentle voice.
'I'm going back to bed,' announced his brother.
The Boy was placed on a wooden chair and watched his wife take a mug out of the cupboard next to the fridge. In the back of his mind he felt the presence of a smiling grey haired man. He held onto it and then felt it drift away. His wife turned to him with a cup of scolding hot peppermint tea.
'You going to be okay?' she asked.
Looking around he saw that his entire world had become a mist that swirled around him, causing a ringing in his head as he tried to gather his senses. His eyes were blurred with sleep and as he looked down he saw that he was still wearing the black hoodie, grey sweatpants, and white socks that he had fallen asleep in.
Am I still asleep? he wondered as the wind blew beneath him.
He clenched his fists and felt the sharpness of his uncut nails dig into his palm. The pain felt real. He rubbed the remaining crust out of the corners of his eyes and searched the air around him. It was an endless world of rain clouds and below his feat he could hear a steady rain falling down to Earth. Far off he could hear the rumble of thunder and before he could bring himself to his feet, lightning flashed and illuminated the clouds around him into purple silhouettes.
The Boy could feel his heart racing underneath his hoodie and noticed the tightening of his trachea as he sat bewildered in the sky. He tried to breath slowly through his nose (the way his therapist had taught him in order to prevent an oncoming panic attack) but the sheer expanse of his suspended isolation had taken hold of his brain and was now ridding him of all calm and logical thinking. He felt as though he was breathing through a hosepipe, and the less air he managed to inhale, the more his mind began to fall into a state of instability.
He got up and began to whirl around, hoping that over his shoulder there would appear something capable of explaining what was happening to him. He spun rapidly, the clouds feeling as though they were suffocating him, and so he started to scream.
'Hello,' the Boy yelled. 'Anyone. Please. Help me.' There was no answer to his cries besides the wind, rain, and another crack of lightning that caused his ribs to vibrate.
Dizzy and desperate, the Boy began to run. He could not tell where he was going, yet he felt that he had to try and escape the confines of the storm he had found himself in. As he sprinted he could feel moisture clinging to his skin, dampening his clothes and mixing with the panic-induced sweat that was seeping out of his pores. He screamed again. He screamed out for his wife who was still asleep far below. He screamed out for his mother who was crying herself awake. Then he screamed out for his father, hoping that perhaps the dead man could hear him now.
The Boy sprinted through the sky for minutes that felt like days and yet nothing around him changed. In defeat and exhaustion he keeled over, placing his hands upon his knees, and let the storm continue to rage on around him. He turned his head up to where the stars were hidden and wondered just how high up he was.
Then he wondered where in the sky he was. He wondered this because he hoped that when the storm eventually cleared, he would at least be visible to his family below and they would be able to help him.
As he pondered his location, the thought of being in the path of a plane crossed his mind.
Would a plane even notice me if it flew past?
The image of a commercial jet hurtling towards his exact location filled him with dread as his brain illuminated an image of his body being engulfed by the plane's engine.
I've got to get down.
He knelt down and waved his hand through the grey moisture beneath his feet, thinking that maybe he could clear a hole in the clouds big enough for him to see the world below. Yet as much as he waved and cupped his hands through the mist, no sign of his planet would appear. There was no knowing where he was, and his mind had no idea of where he was supposed to go. A strange claustrophobia had begun to sink into his skin. He tried to clear away his fears and conjure a plan, but it felt as though the atmosphere around him was sucking out all the hope and optimism he had stored in his soul. He began to feel as though the clouds were entering his brain, blurring his thoughts and freezing his synapses. His whole body began to chill and shiver as his surroundings took control of him.
'Not far to go,' a voice uttered from behind a grey wall of cloud. It sounded familiar but the Boy could not give it a face. His body was shaking violently as he turned towards where he thought the voice was coming from, hoping that its body would reveal itself.
Above him, the Boy could hear the wind begin to carry the sound of a lullaby that he had heard often as a child. The tune of the song was off and he could not remember the words that went with the music, and yet it filled his heart with a nostalgic longing that took his mind back to infancy.
'One need only ascend,' the voice said.
'Ascend to where?' the Boy asked.
'Everywhere.' The music of the lullaby grew louder and the Boy felt his knees give in. He fell forward onto the surface of whatever was suspending him in the sky and felt the presence of the voice float above him into the greyness above. He tried to turn his head up to see it leave, but his neck had become locked and he could only stare down at the clouds beneath.
The tune of the song that had once soothed him as baby grew louder in the air around him, and just before the Boy could put words to its tune and picture the face of the one who had first sung it to him, he fell into a dark and dreamless sleep.
When the Boy opened his eyes, all was quiet. There was no wind blowing and the rain had ceased falling below. The cloudiness in his brain had subsided but the world around him remained covered in grey. He did not know for how long he had been asleep, but his skin felt warm and his clothes were dry.
Closing his eyes, The Boy tried to remember the events that preceded his slumber, but his memory felt disjointed, like a hungover teeneager trying to put together the events of the night before. He could remember fragments of a song that now filled him with an incomprehensible sadness as it wrapped itself around his heart.
He closed his eyes and tried to take himself back to the days of his early life, but all his imagination could do was travel through darkness and bring up faceless voices in his ears that told him to ascend.
The Boy opened his eyes, turned his head to the darkness above, and wondered what this all meant. He had, through means that he could not comprehend, found himself trapped in the sky, and had been told by invisible voices to go higher.
He tried to take his mind back to the moment before he arrived in the sky. He saw flashes of his wife sleeping next to him, her breath steady as she dreamed. He remembered as he stared at her, feeling a discomfort as though something inside inside of him were missing and was calling to him from a place he could not see. Then he saw the face of his parents and his memory went dark.
The Boy stared motionless into the distance as he contemplated the options that he had in going forward. He knew now that running and screaming was futile. But he also felt as though he could not stay where he was. The suffocating feeling that the clouds induced in him seemed to grow whenever he was still, and even if moving did not take him anywhere, he preferred the slight respite it gave him compared to his current anxiety.
So he got to his feet and began to walk, feeling a warmth greet his face as he did so. Looking up he saw a bright silhouette hovering behind the clouds. Within the greyness the Boy had somehow forgot about the existence of the sun and now he smiled at it earnestly as its blurred rays brushed his face. He decided that he would walk in the direction of the setting sun, using it as a guide to ensure that he did not end up walking in circles.
As he walked, he tried once more to revisit the events from the previous evening that had lulled him into sleeping. He listened to the faceless voice that swirled around his consciousness, hoping for more clues.
'Not far to go,' it said once more.
Not far from where? Am I going in the right direction? He pondered if whether as he took each step he was being carried higher, as though the wind from underneath him was slowly pushing him upwards into space. Given the monotony of his surroundings there could be no telling if he was going up or down, or merely levitating at the same altitude that he had been since he woke up.
He wondered if there was anything waiting for him at the end of all of this. Or if was he going to walk on endlessly in some kind of nonsensical limbo. He hoped ever so slightly that what he longed for might be up here somewhere. Watching from behind a rain cloud. Waiting for him. Now is not the time for fantasy, the Boy told himself as he shut out the grief of his past and the yearnings that it gave him. He would not allow himself to become hopeful over what he knew could not happen, despite where he now found himself. So he shook his head to clear his mind and decided that all he would do from that point on was walk and try not speculate over any potential reason for why he was where he was.
This could still be a dream, the Boy thought, not really believing himself.
The sun was now reaching the hidden horizon ahead, making the Boy realise just how long he had been walking. He remained covered by clouds, but as he stopped to take in a cold breath, he noticed that the colour beneath his white running socks was lighter than before.
He did not now if this was just a trick being played by his mind or whether in fact the clouds had indeed changed colour. But peering down at the surface below, he could not eject the feeling of hope that those whiter clouds seemed to give him.
His body was not tired despite his long trek, and so he decided to continue walking, hoping that if he could walk just a little further, the clouds would grow gradually thinner and eventually open to reveal what lay beneath.
He walked and watched the circle of sunlight before him begin to creep, sliver by sliver, over the horizon. As darkness began to develop behind him, the Boy could feel a gentle dread beginning to make its way into his mind. He did not know what the night would bring, but somehow he felt, or on some level even knew, that there would be something lurking in the places that he could not see. The feeling reminded him of when he was small, lying awake in his childhood bedroom, staring at a gap in the curtains and imagining that an evil creature was staring at him in the darkness. Waiting for him to fall asleep before it devoured his soul.
With fear growing steadily inside of him, the Boy felt an urgent desire to run towards the sun, to extend its presence with him as long as possible, but the logical side of his brain knew that he could not outrun the onset of the night. He stared at the final slice of sun as it crossed over the horizon and instantly felt all warmth leave his body.
The clouds darkened with the steady absence of light and the Boy could do nothing but stand and witness his world turn black.
He could not see anything, only hear the rhythmic beating of his heart and the sound of warm breath escaping out his open mouth.
Victim to the darkness, he lowered himself down and wondered if perhaps he would be able to sleep to pass the time till dawn. He lay upon the air and closed his eyes, yearning for his mind to take him into a world of dreams far away from he lay. But the more he tried to tire his brain, the more electric it began to feel. It was as though a switch had been flicked on in his imagination and was now sending a current into his memory, projecting blurry images of the past into the eyes of the his mind.
In bright flashes, images of the Boy's family arrived behind his eyelids in the form of muddled silhouettes. He saw the shape of his brother, standing alone and shouting words that the Boy could not understand. He watched as his mother drifted lazily into the picture. He could tell just by the shape of her presence that she was crying. The Boy knew the exact reason for her sadness, but before he could offer her words of comfort, the shadow of his kin began to peel apart, leaving fragments of their memory scattered across the Boy's mind as he watched on in discomfort. All around the blurriness of his brain he could make out pieces of his loved ones, broken and disfigured, calling out to one another. In this confusion the Boy tried to pull the fragments of his past back together. Clenching his jaw in concentration, he attempted to merge his memories.
He connected his mother's smile to the deep laughter of his brother. He watched the two figures collide with one another, every aspect of their construction becoming a moment in their collective past.
With an effort that rid the Boy of his breath, he moulded all the moments together into a single thought. An image that wasn't quite a memory but rather a hopeful premonition. An image of the father he had lost that he hoped to see once more. He saw the man's hazle eyes stare back at him. He saw the sweat dripping from his oily brow and could even catch a whiff of the Old Spice roll on that he applied every day. The old man smiled with dry lips and the Boy could feel tears seeping out of his shut eyes. He watched his father's mouth open, but before he could the hear words that he had been craving for 2 years to hear, a bright light opened his eyes and brought him back to the sky.
After drying his tear-filled eyes, the Boy could now see a clear, starless sky above him, consisting only of a crescent moon on the horizon. It shone with such intensity that the Boy could only stare at it for a few seconds before having to avert his gaze. But even when not looking directly at it, the Boy could feel the moon emitting an unmistakable force of attraction towards him.
He felt himself being called to the moon, and although at first he felt an anger inside of him at having been brought out of his dream, he could not help but think that somehow the pull of the moon and the image of his dead father were somehow connected. Deep inside of him he felt as though his father was playing some part in all of this.
'Ow, fuck,' the Boy yelled as something sharp and wooden collided with his left knee. Turning, he was greeted by the sight of an empty row boat floating upon a sea of clouds. Inside of the raft lay two ores resting against opposite sids of the boat and the Boy could hear a faint creaking in the wood as it rocked gently from side to side.
'Will you be taking me for a ride or not?' the boat asked. 'I haven't got all evening and their are others up here who require transit.'
Speechless, the Boy felt his legs begin to carry him towards the floating wooden structure. 'There's a good lad. Now hop inside and be careful not to tilt me over. I had an elderly fellow 3 moons ago who capsized me. Took him forever to get me back up right. I was nauseous for 2 weeks after that.'
The Boy gripped the side of the boat, its surface rough and aged, and hoisted himself aboard. It shook roughly, but the Boy was quick to steady himself. 'Very good,' said the boat. The Boy turned his gaze back up to the moon, feeling its pull tighten around his organs. 'Ah, off to the moon are you? Very well then, best start paddling before it disappears.'
'Disappears?' the Boy asked?
'Well you can't expect it to stay up there forever, can you? Come on now, tick tock.' The Boy grabbed an ore in each hand, dipped them into the clouds on either side of the boat, and pulled. They lurched forward gently, the Boy finding it far easier to maneuver a boat on clouds as oppose to water. As he rowed, he kept his gaze fixed upon the glistening moon. It shone pristine in the night sky, its white glow radiating a calm serenity that the Boy could feel both in and around him.
He is there, the Boy thought, an unfamiliar smile curving the corners of his lips. He is calling for me.
He pulled the ores with increasing speed, catapulting the boat closer to the sky's edge where he thought his father was waiting. Tears returned to his cheeks while he paddled and within his mind the image if his father appeared once more.
'Wait for me,' the Boy shouted at the moon. 'I am almost there.' His voice travelled far off into the distance and he heard it echo off of structures that he could not see. He paid the strange returning of his voice no mind and continued to call out to his father as he rowed. 'Please don't disappear. Just wait for me.'
'I would keep for voice down,' uttered the boat.
'Why?'
'Because you never know who may be listening.'
'But I want him to hear me. He needs to know that I am coming.'
'I wasn't talking about him.' Before the Boy could consider who or what the Boat was referring to, a purple rod of lightning as long as the horizon illuminated the night sky. 'Great,' muttered the boat. 'It heard us.'
'What?' asked the Boy, but the Boat did not answer. With a boom of thunder the clouds beneath began to swirl violently, causing the Boat to rock and the Boy to scramble.
Between the moon and the wooden raft, he could see clouds beginning to rise like giant ocean swells filled with fury. It wouldn't be long before the dark waves would come crashing down on the rickety boat. 'Where do we go?' the Boy cried out.
'There is nowhere we can go,' answered the boat. 'You created this storm, now you must endure it.' Freezing cold rain drops the size of cricket balls were pelting down from above and the Boy, trying to keep his gaze on the now fuzzy looking moon, tightened his grip around the ores. If he could not outrun the storm, he would at least try to get as close to the moon as possible before he capsized.
He pulled the ores and felt his legs shake as he tried to navigate through the gale-force wind. The rain was now hitting his face at such a speed that all he could do was stare down at his feet and hope that he was going in the right direction.
'You just had to call out to daddy didn't you?' the Boat cried. 'Now you're going to get us both broken.'
The Boy did not answer the piercing words of the vessel, but tried with all the power his mind would allow to envision what he hoped was still waiting for him at the end of the storm.
'Wait for me,' the Boy shouted, and with the sound of his final word came a gust of wind that knocked him to his knees. Pain graced his left leg as it collided with the floor of the boat.
The Boy cursed and applied pressure where he could now see blood beginning to seep through his sweatpants. All around him the wind was swirling and thunder seemed to be grumbling inside of every cloud.
The wood of the boat began to crack and the Boy felt that his end had come. There. In the sky. Alone and unseen to the world. This was how he was going to disappear from everything.
He rested his head on the rain-soaked deck and gave himself over to the storm. He felt the structure falling apart as they ascended a swell of clouds. The boat tried to say something but its voice was disintegrating. Wood snapped, lightning flashed, and then the sky went silent and the Boy knew that he had reached the summit of the swell. Then he fell.
His body was no longer in contact with the wet wood of the raft. He tried to scream but the thought of perhaps being seconds away from death rid him of the ability to make sound. His hoodie flapped against the back of his neck and he could feel tiny icicles forming on the tips of his eyelashes.
The Boy was shivering and staring down at the dark clouds that awaited him. Yet as he continued to fall he realised that the storm beneath him was not coming any closer. He figured that he was not so much falling as he was hovering in a constant state of descent in which the clouds below remained an exact and unreachable destination.
The air around him passed the Boy by and he could feel the moon drifting further away, and yet still he floated. Unfalling.
He looked around him to see if the boat was in the same state, but he could not find it.
I'm going to fall forever.
He managed in his hovering to turn his body to face where the moon had been and he could feel a shard of his shattered soul escape him.
'Goodbye,' the Boy whispered to the moon. He turned his body back down to the hidden earth, his tears now melting the frozen water that had stuck to his lashes.
He wished that he could be up there with his father. He wished that he had been given time to say all the words he had stored up in his head. He wished that whatever force it was that held him here would have pity on him and grant him the chance to see his father one last time. But instead the world around him began to laugh.
At first it was just giggles travelling through the wind. But as his suspension continued, the wind, rain, and clouds began to jape the Boy with hysteric laugher that quaked the air and spun his body over in endless somersaults.
He rotated over himself uncontrollably as the guttural guffaws grew around him, and amidst the frenzy he could feel invisible eyes staring at him with judgement, frolicking in his pain.
There was nothing that the Boy could do. He tried to close his eyes but the feeling made him sick. He tried to cover his ears with his hands but his arms were paralyzed with the force of his spinning. He even tried to talk to the clouds, to ask them to stop their bullying, but he could not even hear his own words as they left him.
The howling of the sky was now to such an extent that it felt as though it were inside of the Boy's head. He could no longer think, but only heer the jeering and sneering that now penetrated his skin. His mind turned into an inconsistent mixture of physical sensation and warped emotion. The revolutions of his spinning body seemed to quicken, as though an invisible giant had just flicked him with its thumb. His brain quivered and when the Boy blinked, his world went dark.
He knew that he was still falling for he could still feel the wind brushing his skin, but all around him was an absence of light that made him question whether his eyes were still closed.
The Boy tried to feel for his face but his arms were still firmly stuck at his sides given the force of his descent.
For what could have been an endless passage of the time, all the Boy did was fall through the darkness. Then, at the end of a dark corner in space, a door opened to illuminate a passageway in his memory.
He could hear the sound of approaching footsteps growing louder until he felt a presence brush past him. Into his gaze came the back of an overweight figure dressed in clothes that the Boy recognised: a plain blue T-shirt tucked into a pair of old jeans, a black belt, and a pair of running shoes that appeared to be fresh out the box.
As he stared at the back of the figures balding grey head, the Boy felt a strange grief take hold of him, urging him to speak.
'Is that you?' he asked. But the figure did not seem to hear him and so kept walking with its face hidden from view.
About 30 meters in front of the figure appeared a wooden dining table with 4 seats, three of which were occupied by a middle aged woman with thick brunette hair, an olive-skinned 16 year old boy, and a 12 year old version of the Boy.
The figure approached the table and took the empty seat at the head of the table, allowing it to keep its face masked.
The Boy watched as the smiling woman spooned rice and vegetables onto a plate and past it to the old man. She was saying something but they were too far way for the Boy to make out her words.
The figure began to eat along with the family and for a while they sat peacefully whilst enjoying the meal. The Boy could even see his younger self laughing along with his brother as they both took second helpings of roast chicken.
The Boy longed to be that past version of himself. He wanted to crawl into the skin of that 12 year old boy and stare at the face of the man he had lost. But just as his day dream seemed to fill him with warm nostalgia, something shifted in the back of his mind.
The figure began to scream. The sound it made was something that the Boy had only ever heard in war movies - it was that high pitched ringing that occurs just after the explosion of a bomb - and it pulsated all through his world and twisted his stomach.
The Boy watched as the figure flipped over the dinner table and grabbed the olive skinned boy by the throat. The teenager pleaded to be let go as his face began to lose colour. The woman was hurling dinner plates at the figure, trying to get it to let go of her son, but that only seemed to anger it further and cause it to tighten its grip.
'You're going to kill him,' the Boy tried to shout but the words left his mouth in a forced whisper.
He tried to crawl towards the scene, but his body felt as though it were made of marble, anchoring him to the floor.
He watched as his brother pleaded with his final breath and then fell limp at the release of the laughing creature.
The figure without a face stepped over the dead boy and grabbed one of the wooden dining chairs in his right hand, laughing still. The woman was on her knees before him, her eyes filled with tears and fear as she stared at her lifeless child.
Knives, forks and spilled vegetables lay between the woman and the figure, and the Boy watched as the fat creature raised the chair above its head.
The Boy gave one last attempt to scream but no sound would escape him. He closed his eyes, expecting to hear the sound of wood connecting with skull but instead heard a voice that he had not heard in two years and 198 days.
'This is a lie,' it said said.
Opening his eyes, the Boy saw the figure of the old creature turn to reveal its face that was not a face at all. Where eyes, nose and mouth should have been was a vast grey mass that shriveled and shifted as the figure craned its neck.
Staring at the thing before him, the Boy felt a wretched sickness move up his throat. The construction of the figure was a betrayal to the Boy's memory and he could feel anger sifting through each one of his veins. 'Look away,' the familiar voice said, and the Boy felt hands with flaking skin touch his face and gently turn his gaze away from the nightmare.
Standing underneath a yellow light and dressed in the same black tracksuit he had been sleeping in the night he had died was the Boy's father.
He was whole. There was no part of him that was missing like in all of the Boy's past dreams. It was really him and he was smiling his usual awkward yet loveable smile whilst staring down at his shivering son. 'My light will disappear soon. But I have time to say a few things.'
The Boy allowed himself to be cradled in his father's arms whilst he stared up at the face that he had tried to conjure cleary in his mind since the day the 61 year-old man had died.
The skin on his face was dry (as it always was), his hair a balding silver, and a caring gaze sat comfortably in his eyes as he looked down at his son.
The Boy tried to move his arms so as to cup his father's face in his palms, but he found that in this world he still could not move. Moving his lips he found that he could not speak either.
'Only those who have passed can speak here. And we are only given a short time to do so,' the Boy's father said. 'I know that you will have questions, but they cannot be answered. I know you have many things to say that you have thought of endlessly in your grief, but I will never be able to hear them. All that I can do is hold you and tell you of the things that matter most.'
The Boy could see tears resting in his father's eyes, ready to roll down his cheeks as soon as he blinked. It was something the Boy had never seen in all the years that he had been on Earth.
'I am gone, son,' the man continued.' 'This is the only time that you will be able to see me in my entirety before I disappear forever. In many nights to come you will think that you have seen me in your dreams, just like that figure at the dinner table, but those are only distortions of me caused by the anger of your grief. It is not me, and it never will be. You need to understand that. If you look for me, the only place that I can be found is in your past. Most times I will be blurry, but that is the purest version of me that you will ever be able to see. You will not be able to find me in any other place but your memory and the memories of others who knew me. That is where I will dwell. I may not always look or feel the same when you go back in your mind to visit me, but that is how you must go on.'
The yellow light above the crying man began to flicker. He looked up and sighed.
'My time is almost over,' he said, moving his eyes back to his immobile son. 'Now I must ask you to never come looking for me up here again. If you do, I will not be able to save you and you will be stuck in this darkness forever. And the last thing I want is for you to spend the rest of your life in this void waiting for me to appear. Because that will never happen.'
The Boy could feel light fading and darkness growing ever more present in the atmosphere around them. Staring at his father's face he could see the outlines of the old man's facial features beginning to fade. His smile was no longer as pure as it was moments ago and the warmth of his hands upon the Boy's face was steadily dissipating.
Please don't leave me, the Boy could only think to himself. He did not want his father to ever let him go. He did not think he was capable of watching him leave again.
Knowing now that this was indeed the last time the he would ever see him so clearly. The Boy's mind flooded with thoughts and words that he had been restricted to say. He craved the opportunity to express every emotion that his father's death had made him feel. He wanted to tell the man how lonely he felt down in the world. He wanted to tell him how no one really wanted to talk to him about his father's heart attack and how it had left him stranded, isolated, grasping for something whole to hold onto whilst his world fell apart. He wanted to scream out how his mom was breaking down. How his brother had taking to drinking every night instead of talking. And how when he saw the both of them sitting silently in the living room together each night his heart would crack ever more in knowing that now they were just cheap imitations of the people they used to be before they had lost his father. He wanted to blame the man staring at him for all of it. He wanted to ask him why he had died, and whether or not he knew the world that he had left them in. A world where they now felt adjacent to life around them, watching things pass them by in monotonous routines whilst they tried to fill a hole inside of themselves that kept on getting deeper. Then he wanted to tell his father that he loved him and that he would give his soul or anything that the universe demanded in order for the grey haired, slightly plump, somewhat overly sarcastic, selfless and hilarious man to be alive again.
But all the Boy could do was watch as his father continued to fade into darkness and speak his final words.
'I love you, son. Now go back down to your life.' A rain cloud enveloped the remaining figure of the dead man, and as the Boy watched on he felt as though his stomach was shattering like a clay pot falling to the ground. He kept his eyes fixed on where his father had once stood and felt physical sensation and mobility return to his body. His arms began to shudder and he legs twitched. He could feel pins and needles moving across his skin and a thumping in his head that made his eyes water. Breath entered his dry lungs and when he exhaled he found that he could speak.
'Goodbye dad,' the Boy said.
The Boy knew that this time he was truly falling for as soon as he bid farewell to his deceased father, the air below him opened up and gravity began pulling him down at a speed he never thought possible. His head was full of the sound of wind and the disintegrating clarity of his father's image.
The Boy fell through a series of clouds, each a different shade of grey, and felt his clothes dampening from the moisture around him.
He wiped his face as he entered an expanse of whiteness and before he could begin to understand what was truly happening to him, the clouds opened up and he could see the world appear below. The ocean lay sprawled like a giant pool to his right, and on the left stretched the vineyards and mountain range that he had grown up exploring.
He understood then that in all likelihood he was falling towards the home that he had fell asleep in however many nights ago before he woke up in the clouds.
By the position of the sun he could tell that it was early morning and he wondered if his wife was still asleep, if his mother was already wiping tears from or eyes, and whether his brother was already on the treadmill so as to continue evading the desperation inside his head.
Cars, streetlights and people were now in view and the Boy could feel a warmth from the rising sun touch his skin as it cast a shadow of the mountain over the house he was falling towards.
He could feel dread building up inside of him as the real world approached, his mind wondering what was going to happen when his body made contact with the ground.
The clouds were now far above him and he could hear the sound of buzzing traffic and shouting hawkers in nearby streets. He knew that he was seconds from crashing, and so he closed his eyes, clenched his jaw and braced himself for impact just as a bark from his neighbour's dog vibrated his ear drums.
The Boy lay upon the balcony of his childhood home.
His body had been shattered into millions of pieces and he could feel shards of organs and skin calling out to one another as they begged to be reconnected.
When he opened his eyes, he found that he was staring down at the brokenness of his construct. It seemed as though upon crashing, his mind had separated from his physical body and now he was looking down at the unfathomable shattering of his being.
The sun was reflecting upon the shards of his body, but he could not feel its warmth, nor any other physical sensation. All that he had was the fear that circulated in the space outside of himself that stared down at the balcony floor.
What will they do when they see me?
The last thing he wanted was for his family to see him in this broken state, especially his mother.
He wished in that moment for a breeze to wisp him off the balcony and into the garden below. Away from the eyes of his loved ones and their worries. He did not want to be a cause for more pain in their hearts. He only wanted them to heal, and the sight of all his separated pieces would only rescind their feelings into the despair they had been trying to pull themselves out of.
But no wind would come, and the Boy lay stagnant, hovering in a universe he was comprehending less and less as time passed.
The neighbors dog barked again and he could hear someone down the street rolling their dustbins out onto their driveway to be collected by the garbage truck.
From inside the house he heard the sound of a kettle boiling.
Someone was up and he wondered who it might be. Then he heard the radio switch on and knew it must be his mother, as she was the only one in the family who still liked to listen to the morning news on the local station.
Just as an ad came on for low-cost car insurance, the Boy heard the voice of his wife.
'Good moning,' she said in a tired voice.
'Hello dear,' his mother replied. 'Sleep okay?'
'Strange dreams as usual, but otherwise fine.
'Coffee?
'Please.'
There was the sound of water being poured into mugs and Katy Perry singing Teenage Dream on the radio.
'Have you seen Brett? The Boy's wife asked. 'He wasn't in bed when I woke up.'
'No, perhaps he went for a run?'
'His running shoes are still in the room.'
'Brett,' his mother called out for the whole house to hear. And the house greeted her with another chorus of pop music.
'Hmm,' his wife uttered. 'I'll check out back, maye he has his headphone on.'
The Boy heard his wife get up and open the back door to the courtyard that lead to the garage. For a minute or two the radio played and the Boy wished that he could be whole and walk through the balcony door to greet his mother, but then his wife returned to speak the inevitable.
'He's not there either, and both cars are still in the garage.'
Just blow me away. The Boy pleaded to whatever might be listening. They shouldn't have to see me like this.
It would be moments before one of them came out here and he could not stand the image that his mind was formulating of the look on his mothers face when she eventually found him. Inside he could even sense the womans growing discomfort at not knowing where he was.
'Brett,' he heard his mom call out again as she got up. He could hear fear reveal itself in the way she said his name. He heard footsteps in the hallway and lights being turned on. He could picture his wife staring at the old women, scared of the panic that would rise exponentially the longer he remind hidden. 'Where are you love?' she shouted.
He heard her opening doors around the house and calling his name over and over, her voice becoming more shrill with each iteration of the name she had given him. He could hear his wife trying to calm the situation with possibilities of where he might be, but each one sounded unlike anything the Boy would ever do and thus did nothing to wash away the tense atmosphere that was growing throughout the household.
He heard another door open and his brother shouting.
'What are you doing?' the 30 year-old man yelled, clearly having been woken up by his mother turning on his bedroom light.
'Have you seen your brother?' the ladies asked in unison.
'Yeah, he's in the cupboard.'
'Don't!' his mother yelled and the Boy could tell that she was starting to cry.
'Jesus mom, it was just a joke. What's going on?'
'We can't find your brother,' the Boy's wife answered. 'The cars are both still here and so are his running shoes.'
'Have you called Finn? Maye they made a plan?' Finn was the Boy's best and only friend besides his wife.
'Finn's away for work the whole month,' said his wife.
'Oh god,' cried out the Boy's mom, now entering a full state of panic.
'Mom, it's okay. I'm sure he is somewhere.'
'You don't know that!' the woman yelled. 'What if something happened to him.' She was pacing the room by the sounds of it, her mind most likely displaying all the worst case scenarios of what could have happened to her son.
The Boy wondered if her mind would be able to fathom the pulverised version of her child that now lay upon the balcony.
This is going to destroy her.
He could hear cupboards being opened frantically and the growing wails of his grieving mother.
'We need to find him. We need to find him. Brett. Brett. Where are you, boy. BREEEETTT!' Instead of trying to calm her down, which they probably knew by now was impossible, the brother and wife of the Boy joined in the search and he heard them exit the bedroom.
Over their shouting of his name he could hear his mother's voice clearly in the stud - the one room that still belonged to his father even after his death.
'Please. Please he can't be gone. He can't be gone.' The Boy imagined that she was staring at the photo of his father that they had placed upon his desk. The same photo that his mother would speak to every evening before she went to bed. The Boy could see in his mind the image of his mother as she held the photo of his father smiling upon his mountain bike, pleading with it for her son to be safe. 'You can't take him. I need him.' Rapid inhales were now interspersed with each word that she spoke. 'Please - I - can't - lose - another - one - of - you.'
The Boy could do nothing whilst his mother cried out except stare at the pieces of him that were now beginning to crystalise in the sunlight.
Dread was the only feeling that his mind was comprehending and it was growing to an unstable level as he imagined the sounds his mother would make when she saw the broken and deformed creature that he had become. He wanted to escape.
He wanted in that moment to leave his consciousness and avoid the terror that the discovery of his body would bring. He wanted to escape it all and rid them of the collective suffering they would have to endure when attempting to put him back together. He wanted to get away from his mother's cries that would carry on for years whenever she thought about what she had lost. He wanted it all to be over. He wanted to save them. To spare them. He wanted to be gone.
'Oh, there you are,' he heard his wife say as she opened the sliding door that led out to the balcony. 'Let's get you inside and fix you up.'
He felt her warm hands sweep up the entirety of his being in a single swoop. He tried to say something but his voice and mind were still disconnected.
'It's okay honey, you don't have to explain.' Slowly he felt his mind sinking. He began to experience electricity moving through his synapses as mind and body began to reconnect. Pins and needles covered his skin as veins transferred blood to his arteries. Breath filled his lungs and he inhaled life like a cold and refreshing beverage.
Blinking, he stared up at the face of the person he loved most in the world as she smiled down at him.
'Let's get some tea in you,' she said.
'Is that him?' the Boy heard his mother ask.
'Yip,' I found him on the balcony.
'Oh good,' she answered in a calm and gentle voice.
'I'm going back to bed,' announced his brother.
The Boy was placed on a wooden chair and watched his wife take a mug out of the cupboard next to the fridge. In the back of his mind he felt the presence of a smiling grey haired man. He held onto it and then felt it drift away. His wife turned to him with a cup of scolding hot peppermint tea.
'You going to be okay?' she asked.
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