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"A Nothing Life ..."

He sat.
it was one of those nights.
A night where nothing fed his hunger, nothing quenched his thirst. Nothing stilled the strange feeling in his head

The curtains should have been drawn hours ago. He was usually prompt in doing so, right bang on that line between dusk and night - after the street lights had come on, but before the clouds overhead darkened to nothing.
The inky blackness seemed warmly inviting tonight, although he knew a chill wind blew. Something the orange glow of a lamp could not compete with - the still dark streets of night.
This night would be endless, he knew it. The glaring clock on the video faded into muddled lines; minutes blurred to hours and still nothing.

Why he sat so still, so quiet, with the sleeping air around him his only companion, he knew not.
It was one of those nights.
The feeling wouldn’t budge tonight, the same feeling he’d had for years. The niggling nothingness in his head he couldn’t describe, couldn’t explain but just ... was. It told him to do something, anything, but still he sat motionless.

This was the puzzle of his life.
A labyrinth of dead-ends, rip-offs and badly-cut corners. The feeling called for action, as it had done for years, though painful, impossible school. Through the mindless jobs as assistant, clerk, worker - saving everyone time and effort except himself. Moving not up ladders, but across them. A straight line to nowhere.
His life seemed hardly worthy of the title. Little more than an existence.

Nothing.

Something clicked.
The feeling was nothing - a dull, indescribable feeling. Simply ... nothing ... nothing in his mind.
He’d been chasing it.
His existence had been based on the one good idea he’d had. To chase his feelings, to trust them and to follow them everywhere. To see what excitement they’d bring him. A childhood ideal.
But chasing nothing would land you nowhere.
Now he knew it.

The clock on the video focused itself and the time sprung back and raced passed, dragging him onwards to the light.

The feeling was not something to trust but a lure, some bait, tempting him into traps and corners. He’d been chasing something he should have been running away from.
The feeling had appeared years ago.
Another set of exams failed and it was there, a warning of what was to come, what to avoid, what not to do. It was an early warning of his inevitable future as a faceless worker to the important ones.
But, as with everything else. he had got it wrong. Done the opposite. Followed instead of running.

It was one of those nights. It was all of those nights. Now he saw why he sat, why he thought, why he was restless. His mind was telling him to do something, but he could think of nothing.
Years of endless, mindless sorting, copying, shredding had diluted his imagination. That push, that warning of what was to come, was ignored because he’d no imagination to do anything with it.

He had to try.

His face was sagging, he style was dated, everything seemed so fast yet he still had nothing. Perhaps now he should try.

He no longer sat, instead walked. Through the kitchen, into the garden. His lonely, nothing garden. Now he saw how much of his nothing life had spread around him.
An apple from the old tree glinted in the moonlight.
He picked it and felt it’s weight in his palm, rolled it in his fingers, spun it by the stalk.

He held his life in his hands.

The house backed onto a public garden where the grass was soft and spongy. This was not reality. A child’s innocence would grow here, but this was not life.

He turned back towards the house and the cold, hard, black street was vivid in his mind.
That was life.

The apple spun a smooth curve in the still night over the house and out of sight, landing soundlessly behind.
He made his way around and saw, on the hard concrete road, his life.

Smashed into a thousand pieces without a sound, no one saw it, no one cared. Even he did not hear it land and break.
The pieces could be gathered, but always to be less than the whole and without the promise and excitement it held. And the effort in the collection, by himself, would far outweigh what he would regain - it would have lost all taste, all freshness and disappoint.

He saw his life in the darkness.
The nothing in his head grew into something now that he had seen. What he had chased all his life stopped still and looked back at him.
He saw it and he saw the only option he had left.
Death.
It stood there watching him, still at last.
The chase was over.

A light broke over the horizon.

Hmm, I'll be on the look-out.
I'd try a happy one, but I just know I couldn't resist descending into darkness and death and blood-splattered walls and.... :)

Yeah, that'll be it. You need an impact at the end of short stories especially or they're a bit ... floppy .... yes.

But I have an idea for a nice story.
It just dawned on me now, which was nice.
And a surprise on the end as well. Hoorah!

Let's get down to it ...

I'm the same. The problem with happy stories [especially when they're very short stories] is a happy ending doesn't quite have the necessary 'bite' to round it off in an interesting way. You can't get the shock value.

Cheers.
But doesn't everything end in death?
Can never seem to write a short story which isn't either death-filled, apocolyptic or extremely disturbing. Strange, that.

Right.
Next story I write is going to be nice. That's a promise. Light and airy, warm and loving it shall be.

I kinda guessed it was going to end in death, but the minimal style of the ending was nicely done. Good one.

*Lifts skirt*

...

Yup.

'n' girls?

Cheers guys.

Thanks - that was the word I was looking for.

Metaphor, I think you mean.