Quietly

It was the darkest place he had ever been.

Quietly.

There was a strange feeling of finality to where he was. Or doom. Or acquiescence. Hope stretched to the thinnest definition. Almost broken. Almost gone.

The thing he loved most, his one inspiration, the thing that came from his soul; lay dormant. No sense of urgency. An urgency that used to give him life and release.

Now there was only a quiet. Foreboding quiet. A sensation that appeared to be the end result of a lifetime of emotional beatings.

There had been dark times before. Many. Darkness defined him; darkness expressed him.

In naked honesty.

These were accompanied by an atmosphere of frenzy. Desperation. A twisted definition of hope.

These were fueled, exaggerated and eventually numbed by brown fluids.

This new place was markedly and dramatically different.

There was only his mind.

Bruised in numb surprise.

The body and the mind were in perfect unison. Fatigue, limpness, a floating sensation suggestive of no existence.

Exhaustion.

A sense of being in the same place everywhere he went.

Nowhere.

The mind functioned dully; the body felt as if it had aged ten years in a month.

There is a strange sensation of peace in all this.

A disturbing, ominous, peace that would not, could not, nourish any soul.

A peace that offered no salvation.