The day goes on as normally as it always does. Events happen; people talk. Everything goes normally; and then a poem appears out of nowhere.

A paper, torn carelessly from a notebook. As if the person who ripped it apart from its home was in a hurry. I find that paper on my desk when I go back to look for the expensive pen I lost.

“Came with a shattered body

Going with a heartful of sorrow

Looks like a red trail of blood

The trace I leave in this deadly hollow

Life is abandoning me, alone

And restricted, I wander in this ocean

Where the waters are shallow”

A poem.

No doubt about it.

“What’s that?” Sonny pokes her head in front of me, and before I can yank the paper away, she skims the whole page. “Another invitation? I guess Will doesn’t want to give up.”

Will. William. The head of a small squad of independent writers, who’s always surrounded by idiots, and smoke from his cigarettes.

“Still not ready to join?”

I don’t respond.

“You’re quite good at writing stuff. Are you really not gonna give it a shot?”

“Not really.”

“So, you’re a lone wolf, huh?”

“Not really.”

I’ve been receiving invitation after invitation since the first time I wrote something for his circle of independent writers for fun.

“Well, then throw the thing away. Why would you even care what it says?”

Why? It’s not even a poem from a specific poet. It’s just some random thing somebody wrote. A random piece of nothing. No one would want to keep something like that.

Before my thoughts reach something, I take a glimpse at the clock and say goodbye to Sonny. She looks at the dumb, blue watch she's had for years, then gives me a sly smirk. “Oh, I’m sorry. You have somewhere to be. Sorry for keeping you occupied, kind sir.”

I run out immediately. There’s a road that can take me home in almost half an hour, but I take a detour instead. The street on the other side is almost always full of random cars that always seem to be in a hurry. The lights turn green, inviting people to cross the street. Although, it never stays green for longer than a minute. I walk as slowly as I can. The light turns red, and I suddenly stop in the middle of the street; and then, the cars honk. Some of them drive past me, leaving a cloud of smoke behind. I stand right there, wondering what I am even doing with my life. These event-less days with Sonny were not what I had in mind when I decided to come here. I wanted a change, not normal timepass. My little detour involves going around a big square that separates four different routes, each leading to different places, and then going back home. But now...

"Ahh, screw it." I grunt, as I turn away, walk the opposite direction I was going, and head back home. My usual forty-five-minute trip home ended up taking thirty minutes instead. The apartment I rented a while back is relatively small, compared to Naomi’s place, which her parents sold away after her death. It’s comfortable enough to live in, and the rent is not that unreasonable. But it’s still small.

I pass out on my bed the second the fatigue hits. Being with other people is oddly tiring. As the warmth of the bed calls to me, despite my brain not wanting to shut down, my consciousness slowly gets stripped away...

Foolish of me to use that phrase, as if I was wearing my consciousness with me to begin with. My consciousness is something I lost ages ago. I don’t fall asleep. I just shut down. During the day, I’m a lifeless Pinocchio, and during the night, I’m just lifeless.

There are people who say sleeping is a tutorial level to get you ready for death. It’s an interesting idea. Death is also called “the eternal sleep”, there are cultures in which the dead are treated as sleeping kids. We even treat the corpses of our lost ones like sleeping beauties, by putting and arranging their hands on their chest, and hiding the smell and appearance of death by using makeup. With that thought in mind, I open my right eye and stare at the ceiling. If sleeping is the tutorial that gets us ready for death, then does that mean death is the final boss? If so, then how difficult is it to die? Does it really need a tutorial? My mind replays the conversation I had with Naomi that night, about what it means to die beautifully.

“Came with a shattered body

Going with a heartful of sorrow”

Whispering the first two lines to myself, I take out the paper and skim its contents once more. It’s an amateur poem. It was written by a normal person, but there’s a certain feeling that the words are screaming.

Solitude.

Confusion.

This is such a lonely poem. Amateur though it may be, it still connects these emotions together. And to me. As Sonny said, literature does not have to be noble.

I tear the paper apart. No specific number of pretty words will make me do anything.

This is not some random story where a guy who has lost everything finds inspiration in an idiotic poem, and gets motivated by those extra drops of ink on a white sheet, and changes his life, becoming a better person.

What is this unrealistic, unoriginal plot line I’m being pulled into?

I throw away the paper and lie on my bed once again. My mind aimlessly traverses to endless different places. Different memories. Good and bad. And slowly, my eyes, and my brain, shut down.

Six days after that, a boy slits his wrists and dies of blood loss in his own bathroom. The rumors say that he was a part of William's writer’s squad… And that he also wrote poems…

And that he had recently lost everything he had in his life.