SUNRISE769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ0fKWdwjyU
769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKuH75YIeCj
“Honey?”769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43E0aOm5sN
“Rachael, I don’t have the bloody time to – ” Adam drops his cutlery and throws up his hands.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH6JfMDKwNr
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rachael returns back to her breakfast. With a grunt, Adam returns to his.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFwRsVdGCNe
The rest of the meal passes in silence.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRc3R5WhCNg
The tall, unshaven man rises from his seat and almost trips on a bottle lying on the floor.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRrnq4D8gIn
“Idiot!” He yells. “Don’t you ever clean this rotten house up?” He kicks at it forcefully and it smashes against the wall, tiny green crystals cascading onto the ground.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ82ayOox3Dk
Biting her lip: “I try.”769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbljAwpYgiJ
As if satisfied by his outbreak of force, Adam deflates. “Good.”769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1NlgYEVzP4
There’s a pause. “…Honey?”769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpiBCmvPfF8
“For God’s sake, Rachael, what is it?” Adam turns to face his wife.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGIgMwy4tvL
Tentatively, she takes a small packet of white powder out from under the table. “…I found this in your pockets after you passed out last night. Adam, what is this?” Her eyes are wide, worried and pleading.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe1W7lcZxrm
“What do you think it is?” His reply is throwaway; he barely gives the bag a glance.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtgm1vvGVjT
“Doesn’t it bother you?” She’s sweating: she knows that she might be crossing a line.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ48mbGHCQQV
“Why would it?” His tone of voice already changes; suspicious of her intentions.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXGmS3H5CJ7
“I mean, for him.” She gestures vaguely to the bedroom at the back of the apartment where their son is still sleeping. “I don’t think all of this is good for him… He scratches himself.”769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡswmEQ3ppun
“…And?” Questioning. Provoking. Is this the man she married twenty years ago?769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmza8teL4Wh
“I think you shouldn’t drink so much. Or take…” She throws the packet onto the floor. “It’s not good. For you. Or for him.” She gasps, then holds her breath, waiting for the explosion.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSi4YQZWHuQ
For a moment, everything is frozen – but then it happens – the side of his hand coming into contact with her left cheek.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTY5cu9jenQ
Her cry of pain isn’t registered in Adam’s mind. He’s staring at his hand as if it is somehow dirty, and with a growing feeling of shame he stumbles out of the apartment, but not before grabbing the abandoned bag on the floor.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnSzn60fusQ
“S***, I’m sorry, Rachael.” But the words are said long after his leaving, leaving his mouth only when he is sitting on the curb of the path outside.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6LQPYX1rsS
Confused, angry, forlorn, ashamed, he curses under his breath. Since when was he like this?769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRKNXi6oHwE
He tears the packet open and pours the contents onto his hand before inhaling them, hating yet relishing the sting up his nostrils.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHIZlCpUkps
He just wants to forget. In his younger and more vulnerable years his father beat him: and every day he asks himself what he did wrong.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXIAJx38kp7
Dazed, he walks up the street.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmHJ1GiUhmm
It hasn’t occurred to him yet that it wasn’t his fault.
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He wakes on something soft. Green. Grass?769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWgwGKShPqB
His stomach returns the breakfast it so willingly accepted earlier that day (yesterday, perhaps?), bile burning his throat as the liquid leaves his mouth.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRmMuTCrz6w
Rachael. Beautiful Rachael. She was upset about something. She’s always upset.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh59aI9DvnU
He gets up onto his knees. “Rachael!” He yells. Where is she? He wants to say something to her. Something he hasn’t said to her for a long time.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNKgWpqg56P
He laughs in relief when he sees her, standing all the way at the top of the hill.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA5z1XOaqGs
Gone are the creases of worry that lined her face, gone are the tears she often cried.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmLyaoT1fs5
And, can he see – or is it just his imagination? – just like the first strands of sunlight dancing over the tops of distant mountains, the faintest of smiles lifting the corners of her lips?769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlhTubIFK1e
“Rachael!” He runs up towards her with all of his dissipating strength, not stopping, not even when his legs protest in pain, he’s rushing towards her open arms, the clouds in the blue sky singing a symphony of joy – he falls into her embrace, feeling her warmth, her happiness, surround him entirely.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoVhot9EBnp
He whispers into her ear what he never had the courage to say; just a few words, but he can tell how much they mean to her, and finally – finally! – as the sun rises on Icarus Point, her growing smile lights up those final moments, with her laugh outplaying the birds spiraling into the heavens, he knows that she forgives him.769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ94QC7SpXJI
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diende…
~Ad infinitum~769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡibDd6WuwGW
769Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKq2swk2CGJ
