Harbinger of Despair

Who was he but just a man? To feel the weight of the world on his shoulders, he was no Atlas. Yet his bowed stance and tender neck suggested otherwise. It came to him in a dream: the absent stoking of an everlasting flame. A gnarled finger pointed towards an inevitable end, a sign that couldn't be ignorantly shaded; recurrence made sure of it. He didn't remember how long it had been going on; time didn't matter at this point. He just knew it was long enough to be petrified to fall asleep.

A stagnant cold sweat saturated his coarse sheets each and every night. He’d blink away the exhaustion, begging not to fall prey to the thin veil of unconsciousness. But inevitability would take him, and the nightmare would stir again, glaring—a showcase closer to its definitive end than before. The pale appendage, a crooked digit, peered from a drafty robe. He didn't want to look. The first time was curiosity; now it had become an unraveling, a non-negotiable portrait towards insanity; he had to look. If answers were only projected in this macabre design, he had to look.

The more than common dissuasions did nothing to perforate the impending darkness. He had tried to find the optimistic anecdote to the feverish matter. He scoured the never-ending trail of information, incurring the sensibilities of dream interpretations. Forgoing the pragmatic approach, he invested his time in signs of the supernatural, only to fall deeper into his distrust and ever-feeling tug that he was onto something diabolical.

His therapist considered medication or a more curtailed cocktail of his current prescription. Desperation saw him in the church on Sundays. Begging for the ear of the priest, he needed no confession; he just wanted answers. Father told him simply to pray: "Drag the rosary through your trembling hand, stop at each bead as you submit to the heavens." He left disheartened, nothing but a cold press of holy water on his forehead that chilled on his skin in a stiff wind on the parish's front steps. He expected it to burn, but he remembered, as per his newest revelation, he wasn't the one to be afflicted.

Not a single searched remedy could account for his most troubling questions. The recurrence was not a frame or picture out of place, just a small and steady unraveling every time he closed his eyes. It was too perfect not to be something. The feeling, the reality of it all—you weren't supposed to feel discomfort in your nightly excursion. But the heat beyond the gate was unbearable. There was no solace in the fact that he wasn't the one burning, but it was time to commit holy acception. A declaration in the garden. He knew what it all meant; he just didn't know whether the other person was ready to hear it.

He scheduled the meeting at the most neutral location he could find: Betty’s Diner. They'd been there enough as adolescents; one last time couldn't hurt. The spontaneity had already incurred a bit of confusion, but the meeting was set. The direness in his voice bellowed urgency; his friend was coming.

He walked towards the long-time cornerstone. His bones creaked from the chill of the winter, or was it the weight of the disparaging news he had to deliver that kept his bones crunched? The air in the dining room seemed stale; a frosted smoke lurched through the swinging bay doors with each hefty push. The hinges sang mightily, a gasping plea for grease. It was lunchtime; admittedly, he should have picked a steadier time of day. But this was better. Hopefully, it would give his guest a reason not to cause a scene when he brought the hammer down. He sat there trembling, waiting for that next frozen gust, a prelude to his entry. He preemptively bought nothing but a cup of tea; his stomach was already churning, and what came next would assuredly unmake his insides.