Prolonged Descent

People piled, stacked shoulder to shoulder, and they all wear the same mask, act the same, move the same. Andil watches them pile, watching favor distribute itself to everyone but him. Savoir faire bleeding into bitterness, paraded as concern. You don't have any friends. What are you going to do then with these days off?

The colleagues laugh. Andil laughs back. The sound meshes but for him, concern gnaws at the edges: awkwardness, exposure. But the piles move on, nothing is heard.

If nothing bears remorse, what's left but to be pressed against the wall? The veins high and fearful, hanging along the edges. Minds turning toward ledges firm with grit, a shielding of mediocrity that comes from contemplating. The piled wretched smell in essence with the free-flowing bodies.

The road less travelled: much like a corpse unpiled, a face observant. In being aware, Andil has strayed. In his office, there is not much care for him. He remembers them in their fleeting moments, how briefly he existed for them. He laughs as they laugh, yet they hear their own echo.

the thing belonging
humans - humanity
ashes and my part in this
hell for this mechanical ugliness
this animal necessity

The space of home is one-sided, and Andil visits it like a stranger visiting a tomb. With the admiration and hopes of being one an entity, being piled here he wants it. But he chose no....fell into mediocrity. There is no place for him here.

Mother's eyes plant themselves into his skull, deepening with each second he stands in the doorway. What happened to you? Your posture bent. Can you match face to face?

He has been working on himself. He has been stable. But the words dissolve before they reach her.

His sister, married last year, the one Andil helped through it all, looks at him as though he'd vanished months ago. There is consensus among them about his clothes: that he wears old things still. They speak as though fabric choice is character revelation. Meanwhile, his brother's promotion circulates through conversation like currency Andil cannot access.

There is nowhere else to go but here, Andil thinks. At least here, I might feel belonged.

But the primitive in him screams: Leave. Leave.

The plans and the stories to tell come back bleak to the ones being told. Andil is being left behind. The whole arena feels the same: you have changed. Or perhaps: you were never the one we thought you were.

Andil is tired of bolting, of carving safe spaces that collapse the moment his family enters. It is hard, sitting with nothing to show, showing that he is happy listening to résumés of others' ascension. He watches them, and they seem to have just hung out, just listened. To have just been.

Again the piles are put. Observant still, no loitering. He knows the high horse as it may seem to others, not honored enough to even be there. The ancient norms press down; the eyes keep deepening.

The blood sustains the body, yes. But it cannot resurrect what the Reckoning has claimed. There is no resurrection here, only prolonged descent into the abyss wearing a corpse's face.

---

The Inkwell Combined Writing Prompt #30 ~ Fiction or Creative Nonfiction
This week's prompt is: "The road less traveled."

The image is mine,
@corpsekaizen