SUNRISE767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwyXUrAl3M0
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“Honey?”767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVj7Qw1y8Y4
“Rachael, I don’t have the bloody time to – ” Adam drops his cutlery and throws up his hands.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8CD3rocEP4
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rachael returns back to her breakfast. With a grunt, Adam returns to his.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU1mIWjzcVN
The rest of the meal passes in silence.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Ac50z4ZPn
The tall, unshaven man rises from his seat and almost trips on a bottle lying on the floor.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP1QBU7UiI6
“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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlBoQnCkICN
Biting her lip: “I try.”767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43TzV6YEy9
As if satisfied by his outbreak of force, Adam deflates. “Good.”767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZH3ErBxPMj
There’s a pause. “…Honey?”767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZTUt6qJGwy
“For God’s sake, Rachael, what is it?” Adam turns to face his wife.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaUQ6ySvvU3
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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzCuGoWRUeA
“What do you think it is?” His reply is throwaway; he barely gives the bag a glance.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqdpKGMoM5l
“Doesn’t it bother you?” She’s sweating: she knows that she might be crossing a line.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDlJeKpNLOS
“Why would it?” His tone of voice already changes; suspicious of her intentions.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5MsBTyEmfI
“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.”767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7nYXvw0xPO
“…And?” Questioning. Provoking. Is this the man she married twenty years ago?767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRTtwm18d6k
“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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnJ9MvBaqLn
For a moment, everything is frozen – but then it happens – the side of his hand coming into contact with her left cheek.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6wkA7h4fo9
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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrGU7iz1kFq
“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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7bM2aXal6D
Confused, angry, forlorn, ashamed, he curses under his breath. Since when was he like this?767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvMDQp6UN4n
He tears the packet open and pours the contents onto his hand before inhaling them, hating yet relishing the sting up his nostrils.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFieYXlkWhR
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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH56AJbTMCo
Dazed, he walks up the street.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzLXvRSJ9AI
It hasn’t occurred to him yet that it wasn’t his fault.
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He wakes on something soft. Green. Grass?767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXOlDxdxxR2
His stomach returns the breakfast it so willingly accepted earlier that day (yesterday, perhaps?), bile burning his throat as the liquid leaves his mouth.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2XDgxOYa3E
Rachael. Beautiful Rachael. She was upset about something. She’s always upset.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡApEKpbA6hj
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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS7l9m08b6G
He laughs in relief when he sees her, standing all the way at the top of the hill.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZOpLhGkL1g
Gone are the creases of worry that lined her face, gone are the tears she often cried.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP6cQzgxwhW
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?767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWjwSigi9VO
“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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ618tn7Avw7
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.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡChApQv5VbM
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diende…
~Ad infinitum~767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0h7AW6NgIk
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