Welcome to Boxer & Rice

Apathetic, numb, alone and forgotten, by everyone – by the whole world.

Another day, just like each that has passed – each that would come to pass. Nothing special, nothing important, he should just keep telling himself that.

He dared to steal a glance of the outside world, out of the small window. Bright colors, chirpy sounds, spring, a feast of nature. A perfect contrast to his gray study. Just proving what a shameless lie the whole world was.

He looked down at the neat folders. He had finished with them hours ago…and had hardly noticed.

It was easier to stare at them, thinking of nothing. Exorcising the memories of times merrier, memories of life.

Focused his attention at the sparkling prism, the sunbeam on the blade’s edge was creating., anmaged to block everything for another long hour.

A butterfly was in front of the window. She batted her velvet wings gracefully, frozen for a heartbeat; a purple-tainted feather suspended in the mid-drift, blocking the sun for a single heart-beat.

Inevitably, he noticed he couldn’t block the images she awakened and inevitably, he walked all the way down the labyrinth he had constructed – it failing its purpose for yet another time.

Laughter and joy, friends, company, days, when loneliness had no meaning. Days far gone, days of a living lie.

He watched them sparring and playing. Wondered for a second, how it could all feel so far away, since only a year had passed, a full year, today. Watched mute, smiling faces, as they had frozen in his memories forever, could do nothing. Watched and waited for the end he knew was coming.

The day was dragging to an end, the vibrant colors muted into violet and gold. The two of them had run all the way up the cliff, under the glorious sunset, heaving now but altogether smiling. Touches and promises, and then he was on his back. Arms full of the single reason of existence, caressing lavender silk and bronze perfection.

The most awaited gift. World had stopped spinning for them. And they knew, that eternity was only a breath away, the setting sun. The essence of the world, plus a breath, captured forever, in their first kiss, as simple as that.

He blinked his eyes, hopelessly. It would never just end there. The universe was too well-known for its perfect cruelty.

Coherence was lost. It would usually stop after the painfully bright light, after the last broken cry. Sometimes though, glimpses of a gray day, a mourning crowd, would return. Reminding him of eternities facing a gray ceiling, a grey wall.

Their last kiss, as simple as that.

Ebony eyes flickered out of their daze. only too little time. She would soon be there, to check on him, to bring him more nothingness; neat handwriting on grayish paper. He should make haste.

The expert hand dug straight lines on the violated flesh. Scarlet, wide snakes. The moment of release – his sanctuary from the relentless pain. Leaving a numb sense of peace, a sated sting. Maybe warier this time, skidding just an inch deeper, still a light toll to pay. The flood took just a minute longer to stop.

Everything was back in place as she knocked. Surely, he knew, nobody cared enough to seek little details like pinkish tints at a sheet’s edge. She smiled a little before leaving, placing a neatly wrapped little nothing in front of him.

“Happy birthday, Gohan.”

She never noticed long, yellow sleeves, slowly but definitely drenching in the color of the fading sun. Dying away it was, so like the day. The day they had shared their first…his only kiss.