Sunset

**This post is part of Indie Ink’s Weekly Writing Challenge. Joelyn was my Challenger this week. Her topic to me was "Describe a beautiful sunset.” I in turn challenged Bewildered Bug **
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It was beautiful.

The muscles aching, straining to tap into some hidden energy reserves to climb up once more. Fatigued limbs grasping for what little oxygen it can possibly get. The mind feverishly working to come up with more lies to enable the body to keep on going.

It was beautiful.

Finally reaching the summit of the mountain. Looking out and seeing vast swaths of lands filled with fauna and flora. The deer leaping, the rabbit hopping, the frog jumping, the insects scuttling from one end to another.

It was beautiful.

The sky losing its bluish hue. In its stead, pinks and violets and orange mingled, interweaving with one another. The brightness and cheerfulness of the day easing itself so quietly and surreptitiously into the somber and mysterious mood of the night.

It was beautiful.

The garish sun that gave off intense heat throughout the day turns into the refreshing coolness of the night. It is as if it finally felt awful enough to stop its cruelty, if only for a brief moment in time. And in that moment, plants, animals and humans, find their rest.

It was beautiful how these thoughts circled in his brain. Wondering what it could mean, wondering what it would look like. He could only get snippets, bits and pieces, fragments from people's explanations. With their eyes, he could see the sunset in all its majestic glory.

It was beautiful. In his mind's eye.

Poetry that inspired my latest writing challenge

I woke up to "The silence was deafening" and thought of this poem that I wrote awhile ago. This provided the impetus to write the story I just wrote.


Song of Sid IV


Mind spinning, whirling, twisting
Remembering what should remain forgotten
Seizing what should remain hidden
Contemplating what should remain latent


Soul descending, spiralling, groaning
Falling under a burden of care
Stumbling over sins I bear
Tripping over and under everything, I swear


The walls are closing in
I can barely breathe
My world is caving in
I can barely scream


I cry out in the open
I cry in despair
The tears flood my senses
But I can't tell if You're there


Silence.
Screaming silence.
Painful silence.
Silent silence.


Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani


Tetelestai.

The silence was deafening

*This post was inspired by Sherree Worrell's writing challenge. The topic is "The silence was deafening.” I decided to take up the challenge as well.*

The sun rose in the east. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decades after decades, millennium after millennium, it did what it naturally did. And yet, somehow, this time, it was different. The sun rose not only to announce that it was a new day; it rose to announce the end of a life. This morning, he was going to die.

He knew he had it coming. Well, everyone on this earth knows that but somehow still manage to think that it would never come. No, not him. He knew he was going to die. He even knew how. He was one of those people that knew his mortality. Accepting the fact that he was going to perish, it gave his life meaning and purpose. I guess that's how it works. We only know how to live well if we know how to die well.

I guess it wasn't a surprise. He was always telling the so-called good people the things they didn't want to hear. He was always telling the bad people that love is not some far-fetched dream. Standing up against the status quo can get you killed fast. It was only a matter of time before they were going to make a move against him.

In the middle of the night, they found him. Arrested him. Brought him to a kangaroo court where he was accused of crimes he didn't commit. Beat him. Tortured him. Amnesty International wasn't there to intervene against such cruel and inhumane practices foisted against his body. There will be no petitions for his release. The paparazzi couldn't make tabloid fodder over his fate. No one was there to console him. He was all alone. Even his so-called friends scampered away when they saw the law coming hard against him. When trouble came, they all fled.

And so, they subjected him to one of the most gruesome and humiliating walk of shame known to man. Stripped naked, they paraded him. They did it to make an example out of him. “Don't be like him,” mothers whispered to their kids. His mother crying a flood of tears as she sees the mangled flesh of her son. It was too much for her to bear.

Suddenly, the skies darkened. The very ground they stood on began to tremble. Pathetic fallacy perhaps? Maybe he was innocent after all? Perhaps. Only time will tell. And in the midst of all the rumblings in the sky, he cried out in a strange and foreign tongue. Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

In what must seem like weeks, months, years, decades, and a millennium to a dying man, the answer finally came.

Silence.