The silences have seeped in...driven us out...and fortified themselves...brought with them their inadequacy that has attached itself inextricably to the self...the self, or more appropriately, its remnants, gave up their struggle when the mirror cracked open the carefully built veneer...the sighs have tired of their own echo and surrendered...its uneven pace has surprised time itself...the sullied hands have screams painted in crimson, screams that await a hand willing to taint itself...the cracked feet might have had a story...which will never be written now...and so they languish, and crack some more...in our hurry though, we forgot the shards of memories we had tucked away...and so, sometimes they are ploughed out, at others they pop out of their own will...and through the frosted glass of quiet, they tell their own story, however much they can, or are allowed to...of a time when laughter did not ring hollow in the entire being, when treat could save one from the trick, when one could lose oneself knowing one would be found, when nightfall didn't fill one with fear...when the rest of the story wasn't a blur...even as the glass shatters, the frost remains...the eyes see, and see through, to an endless gaze that knows not where it started or where it could be headed or even bother about what is on the way...the mind wanders, terrain after terrain of muted nothingness, at another time it might have recognized or even recreated, at another time...hunger has learnt to relish starvation, or at least appears to have made peace...every once in a while, the torn self dares the ruthless mirror, foolishly...ever once in a while it hears a voice and responds with all it has (which is but silence) and then is returned the favor...every once in a while it finds the word "dream" written with a shaky hand on a frosted glass of memory, only to slip out of its hands and become disfigured beyond recognition...every once in a while, a miniscule sigh challenges the mighty silences, if only with one fleeting breath, and is met with the iron clutch of a well fed opponent that first makes the self gasp desperately for breath, and then lets go right on the brink of absolute freedom...and so life, or whatever it is they call it, or don't, in this mute world, goes on, in the now familiar shadow of silences, the self, with failings upon failings leeched on to it, gnaws at its own flesh...from afar, we watch and speak in murmurs now, we know the inevitable, we have known it for some time now...indeed, we could have kept trying, drawing out memories, writing out dreams, calling out with all the strength we could muster...but when we saw a debilitated spirit collapse at the threshold of our camp that day, we knew. We might have been able to save her, nurse her, but not with a leech sucking everything out...we were powerless against the leeches...only the spirit could have destroyed it, but she was too weak...and the leech never allowed her to regain strength...and so we knew. Now it was going to be but a matter of time. Time – the unwilling traitor, whose jagged edges were wielded well by the enemy, and still are...resignedly, as we formed ourselves into a eulogy, we realized, alas! the self would not be granted even that privilege...and so we wait, by the ocean, when the time comes, we, my comrades and I, shall hold hands and walk into the water.
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