It’s pitch dark, aside from the flickering light in the corner of the room. Drops of water fall down, rhythmic, one by one in the bucket that was placed under the leak in the roof.
Does that mean that I’m in the attic, or that there’s water on the floor on top of me. I wouldn’t know, honestly. I don’t even know why I wonder where I am, because it doesn’t matter anymore.
Nothing matters anymore. Only the light matters. The last signs of resistance, the last signs of my life. So young yet so old I feel. As if I have lived many lives instead of my own, silly, meaningless one. Meaningless till one found meaning in me.
But even meaningful can be meaningless, it’s a matter of perspective. I was meaningful. Was, past simple, yet the past isn’t so simple. Past forms your future, steering your decisions.
Another drop falls. But something changed, the rhythmic sound is gone. It’s faster now. Tick, tick, ticktick, tick, tick… It’s still rhythmic, a small change only. But I heard it. And suddenly, something hard falls in the bucket. A loud noise spreads in my room.
I don’t stand up, trying to take as much time for it as I could. Because if you hurry, you will end up in loneliness again. It’s better to do it slowly, taking your time, keeping your mind busy. Then you forget you’re in a dark room without company.
After ten minutes I can’t stop myself from standing up. I crouch to the bucket, slowly, as if it’s the most valuable gift one has ever sent me.
I look in the bucket and see there’s something that looks like a gag in it. I touch it, slowly. It’s no gag, it’s too hard for that. I take it and move to the flickering light. Because of the light, hardly visible for anyone whose eyes aren’t used to the dark, I could see it was a photograph, wrapped around a stone.
My heart froze for a moment. This couldn’t be possible. As if locking me up in a dark room wasn’t enough, they have decided to torture me as well.  Carefully I try to unwrap the photograph. My mind tells me to stop, but my curiosity wins. But I hesitate.
My mind jumps to an old saying: “Curiosity killed the cat”. Perhaps I am the cat. But would I mind if I died? Would I mind if I sleep and never wake up again? My fingers are locked around the stone. Giving it a long thought, I concluded I didn’t care anymore. I die a little more each day.
Suddenly music starts to play. Nirvana. Lithium. O irony, lithium… Lithium used for batteries, batteries that could power a source of light. Or isn’t that the irony? I move my head along the music. That wasn’t the irony, I figured out. I hear Kurt Cobain sing how it’s better to burn out than to fade away. My eyes go to the flickering light.
I chose to fade away. But if it was a good choice? I doubt it. I had time to think about it, a lot of time. And maybe they give me a second chance now.
I still hesitate, the stone still locked in my numb fingers. I close my eyes. To be or not to be, that’s the question. The question that goes through everyone’s mind, even before Shakespeare wrote those words down.
My fingers let go the stone, nearly in slow-motion. My eyes close. To be or not to be. But have I ever been something? Have I ever… It seems like a life time away.
Irony stroke again, it will be a life time ago soon.
I see how the light flickers irregularly. Perhaps it’s time to sleep. Sleep and never wake up, being lost in a dream.
I completely forgot the photograph, as everything seems to be surreal now.
I glance at the stone, surrounded by the photograph. A photograph from a life time ago. Happier times, from I time I was meaningful to someone.
Time seemed meaningless then, and I don’t know how long I stared at the photograph. But it made me go back to happier times.
By the time I got back to the real world, my bucket was full of water. I saw how a final drop of water made the bucket overflow. And then my light went out, forever.
The last thing I heard was a muffled voice complaining about light that was too bright in his room. I heard the first drop ticking on his bucket. And then I slept, forever.