Shuffle

Dan gazed into the abyss of missed opportunities. He stared at the vast collection of moments he had let slip by, the person she could have been, the person he could have been to her. But they could never be reclaimed. So he took all the mistakes, his shame, and cowered with them in the hovel of regret. Holding his shroud tighter than his own skin held him.

For years his nights were an abomination to rest. Over and over he would find himself reliving the years clutched tightly by his mind. In his dreams the trips to new doctors and hospitals were rewritten. Instead of looking to find better treatment for Sarah, they were constantly fleeing from the engulfing darkness. Every road trip was delaying the moment of capture and destruction he knew would follow. But to no avail. Eventually, he would always be caught, and his nightmares never spared him the despair that resulted. He'd awake in a panic, sometimes crying, other times screaming, and occasionally defeated. But the clock on his bedside would always calm him, the bright, digital numbers, yelling at his eyes. The hour, separated on the left of the colon, stood attentively for 60 minutes, only conceding when the next hour was to take its turn on the clock's face. The minutes stood at attention to the all-seeing eyes that sat in the middle, always keeping both sets of numbers in their place.

A voice cut through the darkness that Dan clutched around himself, "Is hell itself experiencing a blizzard?" Dan looked at its owner, his face remained loyal to his true thoughts.

The stranger's expression of bewilderment was apparent, he continued to look at Dan.

"You know, I haven't seen you on our server in...  where did you go..." This bizarre world snapped back to Dan. It was Michael, an acquaintance who he played online with frequently in the past, but they never had been close.

"Sorry, I can't be of much help," to anyone, his mind whispered to no one. "I'm a little tired" and wish I could just give up.

"You ok Dan?" Michael asked, concern showing in his tone.

"It's fine" -ally too much.

"Well if you ever need to talk."

"Of course, I wouldn't hesitate" to throw myself off a bridge. "Now it gets" so that every night is torture.... "better. You" don't know anything. "have known me a long time. But" I barely know what's going on. "it'll be over soon".

"Glad to hear it, I'll see you online later? You've been missing out on some great times." Dan's slow and awkward sentence had apparently satisfied Michael's need to feel that he had extended compassion.

"When I get some time. Good to see you again." Michael continued walking in the original direction, his car, before his senses had detected Dan. Dan could no longer relate to his friend, or coworkers, or anything that people busied themselves with during their daily existence. How could he care about a game when he had watched her slowly deteriorate? He saw the life drain from her sincere eyes and turn into grey, empty, orbs. Listened to the lively giggle disfigure into a strenuous wheeze, until nothing came out of her motionless lungs.

As Dan slipped back into memory, his feet shuffled him through downtown in the city of bridges. The light faded away. Reality was no longer being processed by Dan's attention, he fixated once more on that derelict phone booth.

"Once you get the feeling
 it wants you back for more.
Now it gets ethereal,
Feet ain't on the floor.
One step back you're leaving it,
Jumping at the wall.
Why won't you believe in it
'Till it's gone?"

Bombay Bicycle Club played through the open window of a truck rolling to a nearby stop sign.