The Moon's Confession

Elias couldn't sleep. Again. The mattress felt like a griddle beneath him, even with the windows cracked. It wasn’t the heat, not really. It was the hum, a low, constant buzz in his skull, the kind that meant everything was wrong, always wrong. He pushed himself up, swung his legs over the side of the bed. The floorboards creaked under his bare feet, a familiar complaint in the dead quiet of the house. Two-fifteen AM, the digital clock glowed red, judging him.

He padded through the kitchen, didn't bother with a light. Moonlight, cold and blue, sliced through the window, painting stripes across the worn linoleum. He could make out the faint outlines of crumbs on the counter, the smudged coffee cup he'd left out. Little failures. He pushed the back door open, stepped onto the patchy grass of the yard. The air bit at his exposed skin, but it was a clean, sharp cold that settled the hum a little. Just for a second.

The world outside was a canvas of grays and blacks. The oak in the corner, usually a comforting sentinel, looked like a gnarled hand reaching for something it couldn't grasp. Elias stood there, a statue carved from restlessness, listening to the crickets and the far-off sigh of a passing train. His chest felt tight, a band of cold iron around his ribs. He pictured her face sometimes, clear as day, sometimes a blur he had to strain to remember. Always the same look in her eyes, right before. He swallowed, a dry, grating sound in his throat.

Then, without thinking, he moved. A shuffle, a stumble, a kind of kick. It wasn't graceful. Nothing about Elias was graceful anymore. He was a man made of rough edges and quiet desperation. He lifted his arms, clumsy branches, and let them fall. His feet scraped against the dew-wet grass. He wasn't dancing, not really. It was more like wrestling with the air, trying to punch holes in the heavy blanket of night.

His shadow, long and distorted, stretched out ahead of him, a bigger, darker version of his grief. He began to move faster, a jerky, uncoordinated shuffle-spin, like a broken doll trying to waltz. The shadows of the fence posts, the garage, the overgrown rose bush, they all became partners. He lunged at one, a silent, desperate lunge, like trying to catch a ghost. His breath came in ragged gasps, misting in the frigid air. He felt ridiculous, a madman under the unflinching eye of the moon.

But the feeling in his chest, that iron band, loosened a fraction. Each awkward twist, each flailing arm, was a word he couldn't speak, a scream that wouldn't leave his lips. He remembered the fight, that last brutal conversation, the way her voice had cracked. He remembered slamming the door. He remembered the silence after. And then the phone call, hours later, the voice on the other end, calm, clinical, ending his world with a few precise words. God, the silence.

He closed his eyes, kept moving, faster now, a whirlwind of regret and accusation. The grass was cold under his feet, mud squishing between his toes. He didn't care. He spun until the world blurred, until his head swam, until the stars above became streaks of light. He felt a tear, hot and alien, track a path down his cold cheek. Then another, a torrent. He wasn't crying, not really. He was just… leaking. A broken vessel letting its contents spill out onto the earth.

He staggered, tripped over an unseen root, and fell to his knees, his hands sinking into the damp soil. He stayed there, panting, the cold soaking into his jeans, into his bones. The moon, bright and indifferent, still watched. The shadows were still there, long and unmoving, a silent audience. He just knelt, trembling, the ache in his chest still present, but now, a little less crushing. Just a little. He pushed himself up, slowly, his muscles screaming. He looked at his hands, caked with mud, the dirt under his fingernails. It looked like blood in the pale moonlight, but it was just earth.

He stood there, swaying slightly, feeling utterly spent. The silence had returned, but it felt different now. Thinner. He turned, shuffled back towards the house, towards the glowing red numbers in the kitchen. The kitchen light clicked on, harsh and sudden, breaking the spell. He didn't turn to look at his shadows. Not yet anyway.