Liam

His name is Liam. He has soft azure eyes that were very much like his mother’s, when he still knew what a true family was like. Now, they had turned rusty and dull with years of grief and lost laughter. It wasn’t hard to forget anymore. Not when the drugs were so easy to get. They drifted through his veins and made him lose himself in the fog, in only for a moment. He hasn’t been getting enough sleep for a while now. He hardly cares why, but it’s probably because of the nightmares. Open windows without the protection of foggy glass, soft lullabies spoken by empty, unloving faces, they never stopped tormenting him, not even for a moment.

A couple passes by and he smiles. He knows something they do not. As soon as he smiles though, it fades as though it was never there to begin with. It’s because He starts to remember again, and it kills him a little every time. The yelling, the screaming, the bloodstained glossy porcelain white sink, it was all there, in the front lobe of his brain. It sat there and grinned because it knew it had won a fight that was lost long ago.

His shoulder began to hurt and he rubbed it in slow lazy circles. It had been hurting him for quite some time, and he shut his eyes against the pain. But then, in the midst of the pain, he felt something he knew he shouldn’t. It felt like tiny needles were crawling up his arm, steady and fast.

He looked down and watched as a small ant climbed higher and higher, and he smiled widely. The familiarity of past childhood wonders came flooding back and somewhere deep inside, he relished in its simplicity. He blew gently on the small creature, as if saying ‘hi’. When it went too far, he tried to place his finger in front of it, but the bug was lost along with Liam’s playful smile.

Without the distraction of his little lost friend, he is back to watching and waiting as the people pass by, but he doesn’t mind it because it’s all he’s ever known.