Morning

You were waiting all night long for the morning to come. It will all be better once it’s morning, you told yourself. You stood there, wrapped in your blanket, and stared at the sleeping darkness outside through the closed window. The moon tried to send you one of its comforting smiles, reaching out its soft pale rays, but its efforts were in vain. It was too far away, or was it you, who was too far away?

You could hear the cold dry wind strike the houses, tossing over some trash cans and brushing against the old willow trees. Distant cries rose from the prairie escaping the town’s boundaries and echoed in the night—the jackals. You could picture them lurking in the shadows, moving quietly on the harsh ground in their nocturnal efforts to detect prey.

Time stood still that night, mocking you for foolishly believing morning will break. You were so used to having time evade you, to having it always one step ahead, to having it remind you that all the other moments which comprise your life; those moments which consist of your very essence, had long deserted you; the memories they had left behind clinging on to the fading trail of the yesterday, refusing to let go.

So why did time have to stop all of a sudden on that night, of all nights, forcing you to acknowledge the existence of something you had dedicated your entire life to deny? It wasn’t the fear which had propelled you to get out of bed that night and stand by the window as if it would help you convince the morning to come over earlier than it was due. No. It also wasn’t the sadness blooming comfortably and undisturbed within, feeding on the always-expanding ripples of past disappointments, nor were your untraceable dreams to blame. Yes, the same ones you efficiently managed to hide from others and now just can’t seem to remember where you had placed them. It was that miserable lie you had been telling yourself for all too long; a lie so articulately conceived and groomed; a lie so beautiful and alluring, so perfectly and naturally interwoven with your life, there was no reason to suspect it wasn’t the truth. If only you could have believed it yourself; if only you could have blindly accepted it like the rest of them do.

But that night, the severe dark skies had spread over the world. You heard them whisper your name and rose to your feet, unwillingly drawn to their enchanting gloom. And you looked up, and up, and up, searching for something, even though you didn’t know what it was. But not even the smiling moon, nor the twinkling twinkling stars could guide you. So you simply waited, not daring to close your eyes, not daring to indulge the darkness by letting it manipulate you, again.

One hour, two hours, five hours passed, but you didn’t let the fatigue get the better of you. Finally, a delicate rosy blush started colouring the skies. Foggy pinkish clouds hovered silently above the land, carrying the hungry cries of migrating birds on the horizon. The spreading shades of pink transformed into orange and violet, gradually fading as the sun rose in all its glory—morning had finally broken, against all odds. Of course, it did! What foolish notion poisoned you to think otherwise? But you were still there; the lie was still there. This time, you were not spared. The morning had betrayed you; nothing had changed. Nothing in your life was real, only the pain. Things did not look brighter, on the contrary. The vindictive morning savored your defeat, reminding you of its superiority over you, over everything. Morning. Mourning. Two words almost alike yet worlds apart; a single, seemingly insignificant letter, giving them their estranged identity.

People are always afraid of the night, of the dark, when in fact, it’s the morning they should fear. For the morning is ruthless, merciless, and unforgiving. For the morning lies more than you, fooling you into believing that the storm has passed, that you are on safe ground, that you are saved.