Young Writers Society

Shou ga nai, (it cannot be helped) 

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I don't exactly remember when it all started. It had to be after the Accident. Everything started after that. 

I woke up that night, and there he was. All the way at the back of my room, lurking in darkness. Two glowing moons gazing at me, silently. He stared at me, without really seeming to see me, and he just stood there, motionless. Hours passed by slowly, very slowly, too slowly. I heard nothing but the gentle whisper of the wind through the leaves, and yet surprisingly a heavy calm enveloped me. 

I knew why he was there.

I asked him who he was- it was a useless question, obviously I had recognized him just by glancing at his gaze. He had such a particular gaze. Eyes gleaming with a strange clarity, a sharpness, a gentleness, which always emanated from them. When I saw him- before the Accident, his eyes were for me two pools of gold and fire, like the curtain of light left by the sun when it dips into the sea. Anyway. He didn't answer me. He only continued to look vaguely in my direction. I began talking, talking because talking was the only way I found to fill the void weighing more and more heavily on the room and in my mind. I talked to him about everything, his friends, the days spent together, the snippets of conversation I had had with him and which I still remembered. There was something relieving in the fact that I could tell him everything and anything, without any of it registering in his mind or disrupting the light emanating from his eyes. I told him everything. I got angry with him. Blaming him for my worries, my mood swings, I blamed him for abandoning me and his loved ones. I accused him of being a coward. But then my mind would reel and, realizing what I'd said, I would apologize profusely. I would apologize, then I'd ask him why he did what he did- and then I would fall silent. His eyes seemed to beg, "please let me go," but I couldn't. My whole being clung to the scraps that remained of him. His way of speaking, his way of holding himself, of laughing, his favorite films, his plans for the future which he exposed to me in such depth and detail that they seemed as much his projects as mine. 

As the night wore on, doubts began to appear, cracking the once smooth surface of the memories I carried in my heart. I buried these doubts inside of me, despite the fact that they were becoming more and more imposing, more and more threatening. Had he always had such a deep voice? No, it couldn't be... was it rough then? Like the surface of a lake when you throw a stone in it? No, no... now I remember, he spoke in a soft voice, as if afraid of waking something that would immediately destroy him. And the last words he said to me, "goodbye," no no, I'm wrong.. it was "see you tomorrow," wasn't it? Everything is so blurry in my head, it's like grabbing a mist in your hand before it can melt away - it slips through your fingers. And did he always wear such dark clothes? No, he dressed in the colors of life, green, orange, red, vibrant colors that stood out from the crowd. However... no, no, it seems to me that he was wearing black. Like a shadow. In a way, it was as if he had already gone into- mourning, for his own funeral.

The night passed by slower and slower, and as the sand trickled down the hourglass, so did my memories of him. His voice seemed foreign to me, then absent. His words distorted, sometimes severe, sometimes so melancholic, so full of sadness, then cold, then serene, then nothing. I saw his mouth move, but no sound came out, and I could only read on his lips the coming and going of labored breathing. Then his face, his ideas, his passions, his dreams - everything, disappeared. Evaporated. A mist lifting away. Nothing remained, only an idea of him - like a fish wriggling out of water - still remained in my mind. I knew I loved him, I knew he was my friend, without really knowing why. So I dug and dug through my memories, unable to find why this person was so precious to me. Desperation started banging through my heart. How could I have forgotten all of this. So I brought my hands closer to his face, to touch him, to feel him, to reassure myself of his presence, to reassure myself that he was still made of flesh and blood. My hand passed back and forth over where his face floated, silent, motionless. I searched for his gaze, but his face had darkened, and his eyes were now enveloped in a vaporous mist that masked the spark once so alive in his gaze. I let my hand fall, and I began to trace with my eyes the contours of his face. Just one last time. As they faded into darkness. I traced these contours with a frantic frenzy, again and again, there a curve, there a straight line, there a slight fold, but each time I looked at him, all the contours of his face changed, merged, melted into each other, smoothened out, until he was nothing more than a misty, deformed mass of darkness. A shadow, in a way.

And then I closed my eyes, because it was not in this form that I wanted to see him for the last time. Not like that. Anything but that. I closed my eyes tightly shut. 

After the night had waned, I opened my eyes, scanning the room. There was a chilling silence. And nothing was left of him. He had taken flight. Evaporated. The mist had lifted.

That's when I started crying.