Ashes in the Wake of a Dream

'Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick...'

It had been a long day. He could have sworn that he had felt every second tick by. The heaviness of each moment was etched in his head; like screeching tyre marks made by a skidding car on a slippery, lonely highway.  As he walked up to his apartment, with nothing but the jangle of the bunch of keys in his pocket to break the silence, the skies opened up. He looked skywards; fat, lead-like droplets of water rushed to meet his furrow lined face. He didn't flinch... he let those fallen-from-grace molecules meet their predictable fate, and enjoy their dignified last rite.

Carefully, he turned the keys to open the doors to his apartment. Darkness swiftly moved in from every corner of the house to embrace him... hardly the kind of reception a tired body and a drained out mind wishes for. His lips curled in a condescending smile...he was used to this ritual of rancid, decaying welcome that he was meted out for quite sometime. The novelty of it all, had long been lost. He prepared himself for what lay ahead. His nocturnal date with his mistress. Slowly, he pushed open the doors to his room... there she lay in her majestic, carnal grandeur on his bed; her hair waving in their opulence; enticing him with the shadows that moved on the walls in demonic fashion as lightening bolt after lightening, broke the silence between them. He switched on the lights.. "Not in the mood, right now, darling", said he as Senorita EMPTINESS left his presence and shrunk away in a corner.. He knew she would be back; it was sometime before he went to sleep. He had a sinking feeling in his heart which told him that she will get what she wanted from him. La Belle Dame Sans Merci... she was beautifully cruel; in her own morbid ways. He acknowledged that as he lit a cigarette and let the puffs of smoke perform their 'dance macabre' before fading out of existence...

He turned on the television. "Television is a great invention; it provides useful and sometimes necessary distraction from the web of life.." he admired the idiot box for its ubiquitous utility. He stared at the screen without paying too much attention; the action playing out on it was more like a background noise for the agitation inside his cranium. And with every puff he inhaled, it became all the more distant and incoherent.  Outside, the rain had stopped. A cool breeze was blowing across his room and he let it caress his nape. He lowered the 'stick of death' kissing his lips to drop off the ashes. The wind swept it across in a flouncing, Brownian motion. He extinguished the cigarette and switched off the television; all in one nonchalant movement of his torso. It was time to mate the black widow he had left unsatisfied in his bedroom. He switched off the light and let her swoop over his existence to consummate their alliance in an all consuming, unforgiving sadistic love.

The ash from the cigarette was scattered all over the room....