Darkness

 He sought something to anchor his thoughts. Nothing made sense to him. The hole that had formed in his heart kept him from finding his way back, because nothing else mattered anymore. He wandered the streets without a defined direction. It was too late to go back home. He removed his glasses to rest his eyes, as if that could increase his lucidity. The world outside was no different from the mosaic he had built in his mind, except that nothing was sublime.

 Denner let his glasses fall somewhere in the grass, distracted, when he sat down. He ran his hand over his messy hair, his features crushed by fatigue; he was breathless. His steps lacked strength.

 He raised no suspicions, for the determination he carried in his chest hid the feeling that he had been lost. Above all, it was an act of revenge against a power struggle in which he had lost the means to negotiate. The tricks he had at his disposal were more dishonest in that dispute because, if he hurt himself, greater damage would be done to her. Denner resorted to this strategy when he lost the freedom to be who he was.

 He depended on affection as a tool to suppress his darker side. No one cared enough about him to make him feel loved. He had never nurtured dreams; the present was more pertinent to him. He grew resentful for not having found the purpose that could make him someone respected. Therefore, the absence of recognition caused him to lose the will to continue.

 Denner understood that if he had confronted his fears earlier, he would not have been dragged to the edge of the border where all demons attacked him at once.

 He wanted to tell someone about the things he had learned, hoping that by doing so he could prevent others from making the same choices. His pride was too severe to return, for given the state of the things he had done, no one would be willing to forgive him.

 In the lapse of delirium, he felt pleasure at the harm that would be caused to Phillipe by the spread of his diagnosis. It was expected that no one would dare approach the boy anymore.

 Denner was right. The wrath of the ignorant. The petition. A minefield, the worst nightmare. He watched the unraveling of the spectacle until a spark of sanity blamed him for the invasion of privacy. He did not foresee that he could be seen as a foolish traitor. The side effects of this whole plot fell upon him.

 The light, cold breeze confronted his face as he kept his hands in the pockets of his jacket. His light-colored eyes seemed more intense than ever, with the realization that there was malice behind that smile.

 What he had done was not worthy of forgiveness, although Phillipe had said he did not care. That was wrong. He should have dug his nails into his skin, pouring all his anger into screams. He expected Phillipe’s hatred to be greater than his own; only then would the things he had done have meaning. Because he believed that, at the breaking point, he could know Phillipe’s worst side. The boy, however, shattered his pride with the sword of forgiveness. The final jolt against the void that had formed in his lungs.

 Denner did not understand the nature of that, except by the traces of the powerful force it possessed. Even if he put all his efforts into it, he could not hurt someone who was willing to forgive. Phillipe looked firmly into his eyes and promised that, united, they could overturn that game. And, for a while, Denner believed it. That was the greatest flash of hope he could receive. However, facing his mother took away any perspective that the turmoil could be resolved. Christinne preferred him dead rather than by Phillipe’s side. She regretted having given him life, she said.

 There was a part of Denner that recognized this as a fit of fury; amid so many tribulations, he should admit the human side, given that she had been hasty. He only needed to wait for the disagreement to be set aside.

 Yet there was so much truth in what she said… Christinne needed to say that as an outburst, to make living with him bearable. It would be naive to think she would interpret it differently. He would offer his absence as a reward, a way to repair the damage he had caused.

 Before the end, strangely, the only image that came to his mind was of him embraced with his mother. A tear ran down his face. God knew how much he wanted things to be different. He forgave her before the last moment.

 Darkness hovered over his head as he closed his eyes for the last time. In the last second, one wish: that he had not acted rashly, that he could have endured a little longer, because, by luck, in a short time he would have found the courage to cling to the light.

 He was mistaken; his absence would be felt with despair and guilt in the hearts and minds of those who loved him. In a perfect world, Denner wished that what happened to him would serve as an example for no one else to do the same.