Everything in the past

The bullet flies in slow motion towards my face. My vision blurs and a face focuses in front of me.

My Dad’s smiling face turns to me, ‘You did such a great job son,’ I smile back. Those small moments of recognition changed me, made me who I am today. Those rare moments. His face morphs into something else, anger. He yells at me now, and there’s nothing I can say or do. His fist comes out of nowhere and I’m slammed against the wall, tears pouring down my face. My vision blurs again.

A child laughing. My child. For the first time. My heart fills with joy as my ears fill with the sound of my first born without a care in the world. The sound of someone with no pain, just pure joy. I had no cares in that moment, I was living in the moment with my daughter. But the image cuts to her grave, everything has turned black and tears blur my vision. As I feel them slowly dripping now my cheeks, my eyes red raw, I’m suddenly aware that I’m all alone. Standing there alone in the pouring rain grieving for my dead daughter. But whose fault is that?

My wedding day flashes before my eyes as I picture my beautiful wife, the one woman who captured my heart. But also broke it into a million pieces. Shattered on the floor with no one else around to help me clean the mess.

Since then my life had stood still, my hopes and dreams had faded, no longer the carefree boy I used to be, and now I have no one left worth fighting for. Everything’s becoming a thing of the past. The cold metal of the gun feels strange in my hand as the bullet hits me.

And everything

Stops.