He sits, staring at the wall for hours at a time.
The paint is white, grey, cream, pink, green; peeling. Peeling in pieces, in chunks of time’s scrapings.
The way it peels reminds him of the time he scraped his knee against the raw pavement in the winter when he was seven. It reminds him of the scent of her fingers, held against his nose in the summer, after peeling the onions for their terrible dinners; she could never cook.
There is a cobweb, fine, dusty with greyness at the corner of the rain stained window, and he can see the muted silver moving from the wind the crack lets through. The sky is empty and full, slowly falling. The raindrops are letters; the raindrops are tears, making a sound against the windowpane, a sound against the roof- the sound he longs to hear, but cannot. There is only shuffling above him, the sound of water falling from the ceiling and into a metal bowl.
Tap, tap, tap.
The stirring of the ground above him would make him jealous, and if he could still feel jealousy, it would have been the reason for his insanity.
But he cannot.
And so he drowns in the darkness
Created by his mind
Created by his being.
He sits.
Staring at the wall.
Peeling.