Roger sat on the edge of the fire escape, looking down at the dismal city below as the mist drifted slowly down from the clouds. Few brave people walked below. It was days like this that sent most people indoors, eager to make a cup of tea, watch a movie, hold a loved one close, anything to get away to comforting warmth and hope for spring. But not Roger. He enjoyed the mist as much as he could enjoy anything in those days, savoring the light feeling of it on his face, the way the tops of the tall buildings around him melted into it. It made the city look like something in a dream. Dreams can make you forget. But they can also make you remember. It was in this state that Roger gazed out into the swirling whiteness in the distance and let his mind wander.
He had a lot to think about.
It was the first day of April.
April.
It was supposed to be a month of life, of renewal. Birds were supposed to be chirping in the trees, flowers were supposed to be blooming, children were supposed to be playing in the park. Instead the world was bitter and gray and lifeless, and no one was to be seen in the empty streets. It had been this way for some time, and so had Roger. It was impossible to think of a time before the empty coldness. But there had been a time, once, not so long ago, but seeming like an eternity. There had been an April before this one, a spring day full of light and tranquility.
There had been another April as well.
Although he fought against it, Roger began to think back to the year before. Clips of memory raced through his mind, like strips of film from Mark's camera. They danced before him, tantalizingly real. All of April. April sitting on the floor in front of him, looking up with a grin so wide it threatened to crack her face as she listened to a new love song he had written for her. April passionately kissing him afterwards. April tenderly holding his hand as they walked down the street. April whispering in his ear.
April.
He didn't want to remember past that. They had been happy then, so alive, so naïve. He and April were caught in the eye of the storm of all that went on around them. Constant movement. Constant sound. Drunk on life, they had never stopped to think as Roger was doing now. There had been continuous laughter, talk, sighs of contentment in everything they did, like the roar of the city, always running, always awake.
The eerie silence that pervaded the city was not nearly as chilling as the one he experienced the day he came home to find that April wasn't waiting for him, the silence that was broken only by the soft creaking of the bathroom door as he peered inside. Silence so thick that even as he tried to scream, no sound escaped from his mouth.
So little time had passed since then, and yet so much had happened. That is, for the rest of the world. The moon waxed and waned. Life went on. Roger did not. These mist days were the only thing he took comfort in anymore; not his friends, his music, not the heroin that coursed through his veins. Now even that could not cause the euphoria and escape it once did. He was numb, body and spirit standing still as humanity moved around him in a blur, too afraid to live and too afraid to die. The mist swirled around him, blurring his shape to those on the street. It concealed him, appeared to make him disappear, like a magician's smokescreen. Roger only wished that it would do just that. He wished that he could be carried away by the mist, dissolving into the cool air, ceasing to exist in his shattered mortal form, away from the cruel world, away from his death sentence. He had no reason to go on.
Life had nothing more to offer him.
It would be over soon anyway.
As Roger drifted in his reverie, one lone person, a young exotic dancer, walked past, clutching an umbrella for fear of real rain. As she did, the wind shifted, tugging at the umbrella in her hands. She looked up. There, nearly hidden in the white haze, was the shape of a man, sitting on the fire escape far above her head. The figure didn't move, didn't notice her, and merely stared out at the city, lost in his thoughts. Still as a statue herself, the girl stared up, strangely moved by what she saw. She thought of her own quiet times on the fire escape, deep in silent thought and dead to the world.
Though the man did not see her, the girl felt a bizarre connection to him, and a premonition of something more to come. She waited for a moment. But the man remained motionless, rigid, and the next minute the wind changed once more, and in the blink of an eye, the figure was once more shrouded in mist as if he had never been there at all.
The girl turned and walked on, and in a moment the mist had swirled around her as well.
Roger never looked down.