The light flickered on and off, repeating an exhausting nightly cycle as John lay unknowingly in bed. He never knew of the light show that pervaded the room while he slept. To him, the darkness reigned when he shut his eyes and the light was just, when he woke.
It was in this rhythmic switching of the lights that his dreams and reality, gave way to madness and disillusionment. A dark haired, green eyed siren, occupied his dreams. She beseeched him to love her, pleading for him to join her and he did. They walked together on the beach; holding hands, smiling, soaking up the serene saga in which they found themselves. In time their passion for each other grew stronger, the bridge between his reality and dreams grew fainter each night.
In the morning, the dreams faded back to whence they came and the stark reality of his lonesome existence dragged him back to lucidity, John cried. Tears of desperation; as the mornings light showered the room with its brilliance, washing away the darkness and finally putting the nocturnal switching to rest, his dreams lay broken; crushed into a thousand pieces and left to diffuse in the increasing intensity of daylight.
He loved the siren, So much that his limited vocabulary could not form any sentence of sufficient worth to pay tribute to her beauty – he resigned himself think that creations of such magnificence were surely that of spirit, and no words could ever give spirit true earnest.
John eventually pulled himself out of bed and made his way to the bathroom; his dream - his life, slowly fading with every consequential step. As he showered, john wondered of the splendor; the majesty of what it would be like to dream forever. A world would exist of total ecstasy, never having to face the frosty, unfeeling reality which had become his existence.
His job was the first to slip away. Once he had worked for a bank, refusing loan after loan to the desperate and underprivileged soon took its toll, leaving him unfulfilled and anxious. He had gone on many dates, never making it to a fourth. Women viewed him as intelligent and interesting, but detached from 'reality' – being with them, but being far away, unreachable most of the time. It didn't really matter to him what they thought, for they themselves could never stand up next to the dark haired siren of his dreams. The woman who, despite his best efforts, had been put on a pedestal that vanished into the clouds.
After the last trickle of warm water had fallen from the shower, John made his way to the kitchen. Choosing not to dry off, he walked leaving a trail of footprints and splattered drips, they would evaporate in time, leaving no memory of his presence. That, he found amusing - As the footprints faded until no trace was left, so too would he, in time.
John boiled the kettle in preparation for his morning coffee. Two spoonfuls of readymade instant in his cup, one wasn't enough and most days neither were two, but three he considered madness.
John had no friends or family, nobody to talk to; to share his deepest and most profound secrets. When he died, not the emotional death that he had suffered long ago, but the physical – he would leave no trace of his existence, except for a rotting corpse. John found himself pondering death a great deal lately. Almost praying that it would come fast and swift, releasing him from the prison that once was his home.
He poured the boiling water into his cup, quickly stirring, but not enough to dissolve the mound of coffee sitting in the bottom of it. He walked slowly over to his favorite chair, treading carefully as not to spill a drop of the dense substance. John sat, staring expressionlessly at the naked white wall, as the light entered through the window, refracting against the wall; he realized that it was wet. The smell was intoxicating, almost overpowering in its intensity. This puzzled him. He couldn't remember the last time that he had painted anything, let alone that wall; it must have been at least five years. However, it was wet and the apparent odor all pointed to the wall having been painted, possibly in the last few hours. He sat befuddled. He placed his coffee on the hardwood floor and made his way over to the wall. Raising a finger and lightly touching it, he drew it back. It was fresh paint. Nervously, he moved backwards, his eyes fixated on the wall. The chair brushed against his legs and he sat once more, without taking his focus off the white wall.
The faint sound of water dripping came from behind him, John turned, looking down to check that it was not him. He was still relatively wet, but he did not see any drips around the chair. In his peripheral vision he noticed a group of small white drops forming in the far corner of the room, splattering against the hardwood floor, with the consistency and pattern of a painter painting. John watched as the slightly tainted white wall of yesteryear was getting replaced with a shiny new coat of paint, by a ghostly painter. The nervousness and fear which he had briefly experienced turned to awe. The trail of white dots continued to form on the floor, when an alien thought sparked in his head. John looked down by the chair, where he had placed his coffee. It wasn't there. He looked down at his once wet and naked body; he was wearing a suit, the same suit he used to wear for work.
He ran to the bathroom, the door still open and he looked into the mirror and nothing looked back at him. No reflection, no sign of his unshaven face, his hair which had continued to grow at an alarming rate, despite several weekly cuttings. He stared into nothingness and out of nowhere he heard a woman whistling. The sweet sound of birdsong, a melody of love filled the hall. The dark haired siren that haunted his dreams, walked towards him oblivious to his presence. He reached for her hand as she passed him, the same hand that he had held a thousand times before, but all he grasped was a handful of air. Tears trickled down his face like rain on a windshield, for he was no more than a shadow, a shadow of a life which he once knew.
