SUNRISE678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4I0qc3kivB
678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2f8ExKlWDa
“Honey?”678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN5GGUlGBiu
“Rachael, I don’t have the bloody time to – ” Adam drops his cutlery and throws up his hands.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcnkD7JYDxJ
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rachael returns back to her breakfast. With a grunt, Adam returns to his.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡul1u7fgswl
The rest of the meal passes in silence.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAJ29CX4PF0
The tall, unshaven man rises from his seat and almost trips on a bottle lying on the floor.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ80fwNADp8o
“Idiot!” He yells. “Don’t you ever clean this rotten house up?” He kicks at it forcefully and it smashes against the wall, tiny green crystals cascading onto the ground.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4OvlA8bOd
Biting her lip: “I try.”678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPMeu6qfyfC
As if satisfied by his outbreak of force, Adam deflates. “Good.”678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTGwfjPJpvs
There’s a pause. “…Honey?”678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAcylLEHYij
“For God’s sake, Rachael, what is it?” Adam turns to face his wife.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMPZLU1wmUf
Tentatively, she takes a small packet of white powder out from under the table. “…I found this in your pockets after you passed out last night. Adam, what is this?” Her eyes are wide, worried and pleading.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcetfnWPADr
“What do you think it is?” His reply is throwaway; he barely gives the bag a glance.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaUACN9tw9b
“Doesn’t it bother you?” She’s sweating: she knows that she might be crossing a line.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrMldErfbSw
“Why would it?” His tone of voice already changes; suspicious of her intentions.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYuhclTnkCl
“I mean, for him.” She gestures vaguely to the bedroom at the back of the apartment where their son is still sleeping. “I don’t think all of this is good for him… He scratches himself.”678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZrsVgggHcc
“…And?” Questioning. Provoking. Is this the man she married twenty years ago?678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwn9eu2iZn1
“I think you shouldn’t drink so much. Or take…” She throws the packet onto the floor. “It’s not good. For you. Or for him.” She gasps, then holds her breath, waiting for the explosion.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSjNVstcAU6
For a moment, everything is frozen – but then it happens – the side of his hand coming into contact with her left cheek.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDWLdUfZddX
Her cry of pain isn’t registered in Adam’s mind. He’s staring at his hand as if it is somehow dirty, and with a growing feeling of shame he stumbles out of the apartment, but not before grabbing the abandoned bag on the floor.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHo5wQyJJp
“S***, I’m sorry, Rachael.” But the words are said long after his leaving, leaving his mouth only when he is sitting on the curb of the path outside.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzaPaGu5BtL
Confused, angry, forlorn, ashamed, he curses under his breath. Since when was he like this?678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp0o2IitWcO
He tears the packet open and pours the contents onto his hand before inhaling them, hating yet relishing the sting up his nostrils.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVz7pDc1VKQ
He just wants to forget. In his younger and more vulnerable years his father beat him: and every day he asks himself what he did wrong.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡECp79pGb9q
Dazed, he walks up the street.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwfCAUHsJHL
It hasn’t occurred to him yet that it wasn’t his fault.
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He wakes on something soft. Green. Grass?678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnrhE3wSWnq
His stomach returns the breakfast it so willingly accepted earlier that day (yesterday, perhaps?), bile burning his throat as the liquid leaves his mouth.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXaGuDYryr7
Rachael. Beautiful Rachael. She was upset about something. She’s always upset.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuE0jIyaJdi
He gets up onto his knees. “Rachael!” He yells. Where is she? He wants to say something to her. Something he hasn’t said to her for a long time.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBssN7ugk4D
He laughs in relief when he sees her, standing all the way at the top of the hill.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp0XkUpuH18
Gone are the creases of worry that lined her face, gone are the tears she often cried.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0DbIYyeEF0
And, can he see – or is it just his imagination? – just like the first strands of sunlight dancing over the tops of distant mountains, the faintest of smiles lifting the corners of her lips?678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUCNNxJTWQu
“Rachael!” He runs up towards her with all of his dissipating strength, not stopping, not even when his legs protest in pain, he’s rushing towards her open arms, the clouds in the blue sky singing a symphony of joy – he falls into her embrace, feeling her warmth, her happiness, surround him entirely.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2aVbXEBU65
He whispers into her ear what he never had the courage to say; just a few words, but he can tell how much they mean to her, and finally – finally! – as the sun rises on Icarus Point, her growing smile lights up those final moments, with her laugh outplaying the birds spiraling into the heavens, he knows that she forgives him.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCKvRGkCgk2
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diende…
~Ad infinitum~678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzTcrlmMbRX
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