Wonder

It came in with the wind, a tireless reminder that even the breeze was passionless. Breathing in stale air it held the familiar scent of mediocrity. Continuing the growth of a feeling that grew inside you. You were just a cloud in the wind, with no control over where you were blown. It came to a culmination right there as you sat on the windowsill of your room, with the island you called home continuing its endless floating. This island’s dirt had long ago lost its nutrients, and its trees would grow no taller. The homes in the small village held no love, for the people who called it home did not have any to give. We were what was leftover of a society that had long overstayed its welcome. The deadly abyss forever surrounding us, drawing us into itself, it was a wonder we even remained. It was the simple fact that we were too stubborn to not. We were lost in a maze we had forgotten we were in, the emotions that rose within us caused us to ask ourselves daily. Should we embrace the abyss?

Tosh felt his bruises before he felt the covers of his bed. His consciousness had to work around the pain before he could acknowledge anything else. Naps were one of the best ways to pass the time on this island, though you normally pass time to bring something of importance closer. Here Tosh napped to do something, as the only thing that was in the future was his death. Sitting up on his bed Tosh ran his hands through his dirty black hair as he pulled it away from his face. His room made him feel hurt and trapped, though the only thing holding him down were the thoughts in his mind. He could not break through the walls that he could not see as they shrunk in on him. The invisible ropes around his arms and legs tighten and his lungs seemed to hold less air with every breath. As he rose from his bed the world began to spin around him. Trying his best to slow the spin, he closed his eyes, lost his balance, and fell to the floor. There he laid, pressing his head against the wooden floor trying to make the room stop spinning.

It took time but as the room slowly began to stop he stood up. Tosh was in the same four-walled room as always, the same island, the same floating chunk of land that he knew by heart. Nothing ever changed, sometimes he could only tell that days had passed by the color of his bruises, he looked at the ones that stretched down his arm. Judging by the color of it he could tell it had been three days since he had gotten them.

He walked to his window as he ran his fingers over his injuries, looking out he could see across to the vacant buildings down the street. The majority of the buildings in his town were empty, in fact, only three were used, if you could call it that. His uncle Borg, his father’s brother, lived the farthest with his wife, Tosh had to stretch his head out the window to see past the tree that hid the home. While Sorin, his uncle on his mother’s side lived alone across the street from them, it wasn’t the buildings that Tosh had looked out the window for, it was the clouds. The clouds that endlessly surrounded the island, no matter where you looked you saw the wall, miles high. It made you feel small and insignificant.

Tosh thought to himself, “I am just a cloud in the wind.”

Turning away from the window he inspected the room, there were impressions on the wood of where his feet had hit the floor every day for the last 19 years. The smell of dinner reached his nose as he let his eyes lazily drift around his room. Making his way to his closest he found a clean long-sleeved shirt and put it on so that his bruises were covered. Tosh walked out of his room and turned down the hallway he banged on his brother’s door to get his attention and headed down the stairs to the kitchen.

The house was run-down, and though they had tried to keep it in as good a shape as they could, the fact that remained is that they did not have the tools nor the know-how to keep it in better shape. All of the windows lacked curtains as they had been turned into shirts and shorts, and glass as they had been broken. The man who could make glass had died before even Tosh’s father had been born and with him the skill. There were clear signs of the wood in the walls being eaten by insects they could not see. Holes, where the floor had simply failed, were covered loosely by other boards as they had no ability to create new nails. As you took the stairs you had to skip the first board and the last unless you wished to try your luck on whether it will hold you or not. Even the table showed signs of age as all four legs were made from different types of wood and with only two working chairs Tosh and his brother were forced to stand and eat. Moving to one of the vacant homes was not an option as they were in even worse shape.

Making his way into the kitchen, his mother greeted him, “Hello Tosh.”

Tosh did not acknowledge her as he began to set the table for his family. His father came to the table just as Tosh had set down the last dish. His mother placed the dinner down on the table as Lance came to the table, “Hello Lance.” Tosh’s mother enjoyed greeting everyone she could. Both Lance and Tosh did not return their mothers’ greetings. Lance sat down across from Tosh, “Eggs again?” Lance complained. At 8 years old he really couldn’t comprehend the concept of resource partitioning. His mother responded. “Because the chickens always give us eggs, it is a constant source of food.”

“Yes, but why eggs?” Whined Lance.

Tosh had already finished his eggs and placed his dish in the sink, cleaned it, and headed out before they could object. His quick absence was noticed by his mother, “I am worried about him, Ralton.” His mother spoke to his father, who barely looked up from his food as he responded, “He’ll get over it.”

“Yes, I guess I will get over it.” Tosh thought as he heard the words his parents had said through the thin door that he was leaning against.

His breathing was labored as he tried to calm his heart, but his anxiety wouldn’t allow it. He took his back off the door and began to walk down the road he had memorized. As he passed buildings that had been empty his whole life, despair filled his heart. Time continued its never-ending tick, but the life around Tosh seemed to have forgotten to begin. Seconds, days, and years were counted on the same unmoving clock. A building that once held a family now stood empty, the memory of the mother screaming when she found out what her daughter had done still echoed off the home’s walls. Tosh stopped in front of the home, their little boy used to stare out the window waiting for Tosh and Lance to walk by. He would come racing out and join them. Instead, cobwebs hung where he used to sit, the door had been taken off as a good luck charm that someday someone would replace it with a new one.

“There is no life here, just empty buildings, empty roads, and empty homes.”

As he continued his walk it led him into the surrounding forest, he was hoping to see a bird, or a squirrel any signs that there was growth. But the only life he found was in the pine trees, he brushed his fingertips on a passing tree. A stick caught his eye and he bent to pick it up, using it to poke a drop of sap that had formed around a broken branch. The path he walked was well worn into, he had walked it every day since turning 10, he knew how long it would take him. Tosh let his feet take him to where his heart was pulling him as he walked down the path some else had long ago made.

“How many times do you have to see the same view before becoming blind to it?” He thought to himself as he walked through the calm forest, answering himself. “Somewhere between 200 and 300 times.”

Tosh’s island slowly floated through the sky, the light breeze you felt as you sat on the end calmed him. Looking down you saw only fog, Tosh did not know what was down there whether it was a vast ocean or more land. He just knew that you would not come back up. A ring of thick clouds surrounded his island except when you looked straight up. The sun had set as he had walked to the edge, stars, galaxies, and on rare occasions, comets began to fill the sky.

Tosh sat there taking it all in, “I am trapped on this floating island.”

He picked up a stone and threw it out into the void, no sound returned to him, no echo, just the absence of anything. “I don’t know how much more of this I can handle.”

Staring into the fog he knew it played tricks on you, you cannot understand that there is simply nothing out there. Your eyes begin to create objects that flash in and out of the fog as your mind imagines great ships or islands that are hidden behind it just waiting out of sight. “I was made for something more, I know I was.”

But what more could he be made for on an island with 8 people. “It doesn’t matter anyway, our island will be forgotten.”

It was something that the parents did not talk about, the death of the island. It had been a long time coming, this island had existed for hundreds of years but nothing last’s forever and death comes for us all eventually. His mother's sister, Ally was barren, and his mother had had 5 stillbirths since Lance.

With thoughts of death, Tosh found it hard to find the beauty surrounding him, but it truly was, the sun shined through the clouds turning them every shade of orange to pink. The sky was a deep blue dotted with stars and galaxies. Even the moon was a kind of golden yellow, and if Tosh had looked at it with a clear mind and thoughtful eyes it would have brought him hope. But instead, because he had seen this nightly it meant nothing to him, death had its grip on the island, and on Tosh.

“Why do I come here? Every night I come to this place, looking for something.” Picking up a stone Tosh rolled it in his hands. “I come to the edge looking for answers. But I don’t even know what the question is.”

His feet dangled above the abyss, nothing was holding him from slipping away, gone forever.

“Of course, I know the question, I just attempt to hide it away from even myself. How stupid I believe myself to be, the question of death. Coming to the edge to ask the question of death.” Tosh shook his head then began squeezing the rock in his hand as tightly as he could.

“Maybe the answer is the edge, maybe I am meant for nothing.”

Maybe that was what was calling him, the reason he walked the same path day after day. “To end it all.” He had made up his mind, he looked straight up into the blank canvas of the sky as if to say goodbye to the stars one last time. The same stars greeted him, he had named them all and counted them 27. He was about to take his eyes away from the stars when he saw a comet fly across the sky. It filled him with a sense of awe even for a brief moment. A memory of five-year-old Tosh looking up and seeing the same thing years ago came back to him.

“I wanted to catch it, so I asked that question to everyone. Could I catch it? They all laughed at me, told me I was crazy. But I still wondered.”

It was that brief moment that saved him. The abyss below him was calling for him, pulling him deeper and deeper into itself, and Tosh felt a tug on his heart. Looking down-filled him with despair, and emptiness, but looking up, looking up at the stars, brought him a sense of wonder.