Familiar

It was an ordinary day, full of ordinary moments. The man with blue eyes woke up after noon, showered, shaved, and dressed in the remains of a rumpled suit.

It was familiar.

He packed up his duffel bag, and made sure to keep it within arm’s reach at every moment.

That was familiar.

He reheated stale coffee and tore into a new pack of cigarettes, not remembering where he’d left the old. He slipped out into the crisp fall air, exhaling grey and half-blue, fragmented breath frosted while tangling with the dreams of dying cigarettes.

All of these things were familiar.

He got off the train and made his way across town, making no eye contact, saying nothing, not even excuse me, not even to the little old lady who nearly ended up in the path of a hurried cabbie.

It was familiar.

And the splash of heat, wet and red, that occurred only a sliver of a moment before pain exploded along his arm, the burning shriek of a bullet wound resounding through the meat of him?

That, too, was familiar.

As was the moment he woke up screaming, dreams dissolving in a haze of wakefulness that was both pain and salvation.

As was the taste against his mouth, as he held on for dear life, shaking, struggling for breath.

For some reason, lately, the wall where he wrote his sins was clearer, sharper, and the names stood out in naked relief, neither mocking nor angry, but silently existing, an endless, hopeless grief that was unabated by time.

That too, was familiar.