Sleep   von HubertOswell
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                              Kapitel 1: Sleeping
                              -------------------


Snow was falling like little fluffy feathers, covering every tree and bush and
the whole ground, be it grass or gravel. The breaths became a white cloud,
flying skyward and disappearing in the endless nothing above. Stars were shining
but he could be mixing it up with the glittering snowflakes. 
The park was all silent, nobody could visit it at night who hadn’t a key. But
it would have been silent anyway, even if there had been thousands of people
around. The snow seemed to take up every noise. It would be also empty since all
objects slowly disappeared under the endless white. 
Snow was covering the fountain he was looking at, the bench he was sitting on.
Even in his hair and on his coat, there was snow, slowly absorbing him. How did
he wish that he could disappear so easily, just by sitting there and thinking.
He cuddled deeper into his coat after pulling his scarf up to cover his nose. He
knew that he couldn’t sit here forever. He needed warmth, just like all the
sleeping flowers around he knew so well, and unlike them, as soon as he fell
asleep under the soft, snowy cover, he wouldn’t wake up. There was no spring
for him, he’d always known. And there would never be one.
Knowing and act in best of his knowledge were two totally different things.
Otherwise he hadn’t gone to that party tonight. It hadn’t been the first of
this kind he had been invited to. Every time, he decided afterwards to never
visit one again and then he ended up accepting the invitation next year anyway.
Just because everyone was coming and because it was somewhat important to his
bosses that he went there. To improve relationships, humpf. 
He didn’t care about relationships, didn’t they know? He never had. He did
as he was told and never ever risked too much emotion to cloud his judgement.
Never. Not once he had stood up against anyone because of his feelings. He had
agreed to everything. Just like everyone expected him to do. He wasn’t allowed
to feel jealous. 
Snow glittered like stars on the black of his coat. Glittering jewels rained
down next to his hand, one at first, then two, four, more and more. His fingers
clawing into the soft leather of his gloves. If it hadn’t been for them, there
would be red with white and black and he saw the irony and was thankful. Painful
memories he’d rather forget. 
He had known what he would get to see at the party long before he had went
there. And he had gone anyway. Did he want to get hurt that bad? Yes, he
answered this question in the quiet of his mind. Because getting hurt is better
than feeling nothing, than being as indifferent in truth as he was in the minds
of all the others. 
All the smiling faces, all the happiness, all the couples and close friends. It
had been so bright that he had been dazzled at first. Some of those he called
friends for various, not really personal reasons, had come to greet him and he
had been standing around near them, listening to their chatter. He never said
much when he was at a place like that. He wasn’t good with people. Everyone
knew. 
He spend most of the evening trying to pay no attention to the dance floor. Even
when his friends all went there and left him standing he kept looking everywhere
but there. There, they had been. They had spent the whole evening floating
around, giggling, being happy and looking like there was only enough space for
the two of them in their own little world. But he couldn’t know that because
he hadn’t seen them. Well, or not more than a short little glance which had
told him everything he needed – and didn’t want – to know. 
Then he’d left. It had not even been midnight then. Now it was a good deal of
time past the last church bell’s ring. The snow which hadn’t been there at
first now almost covered him. He was cold but not freezing. He had been cold all
evening. He didn’t even know why he’d come here. Perhaps he wanted to make
his body as his heart was. Cold as ice. 
Nobody would notice anyway. His friends he hadn’t even said good-bye hadn’t
searched for him. They hadn’t even noticed how he was always feeling this time
of year. How alone he was even with people around. 
His cell phone hummed next to him under a thick cover of snow for the last time
before the battery died. It went unheard just like the previous twenty or thirty
times. 
Snow was piling up, eating away the world and making everything disappear …

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