Ephram looked up. Saw the black sky. Saw the millions of dazzling pinpricks of light. And felt that he was going to be lost in the eternity, the abyss. Felt his heart pounding, the rush of blood warming his cheeks. It was dizzying and frightening and…yet so peaceful, painfully inviting. If only to be lost in that blackness forever.
He thought of his mother. His dead mother, his beautiful, beautiful mother. And wondered if somehow she was out there somewhere. In his mind, the silhouette of her face imprinted in the tracts of the stars, smiling down at him. As she had down countless times in the past. He imagined her outstretching her soft hands to him. And gently he raised up both hands level, as though he was flying, flying in the darkness toward her, into the blackness. Tears streamed down his cheeks. It was a feeling different from the sickening anger and dread that had accompanied the tears as before. It was a quiet resignation, a submission to all the pain he felt in the past. To the pain that he had yet to suffer. A sob wracked his body, and he allowed it to escape only because he knew he was alone. Because he knew he could not go. He could not be part of the darkness, and let himself disintegrate into the chilly peacefulness, the soundless nothingness.
His father and Delia were still here. And he had to live, he had to go on even if for that simple reason. He opened his eyes, the night sky blurring through his tears, dancing lights of the stars stinging his sight. And he walked back toward his house, without illusions of where he was, what he was heading for, and where he desperately wanted to go.
"But
is there someplace far away, someplace where all is clear
Easy to
start over with the ones you hold so dear
Or are we left to
wonder, all alone, eternally
But is this how it's really meant to
be
No is it how it's really meant to be"