The Selfless Act of Breathing: A Novel

Twice our hands touched side by side, first by accident, igniting a spark, second on purpose, intertwining into each other. Time was suspended, everything around us moved in slow motion and we passed at the speed of light.

There was an engulfing grayness creeping in from the corners of my being to the core. I couldn’t tell if this was imagination or reality, but I knew it was there.

staring into the galaxy of her eyes,

The world always goes on.

This house is tired, tired of life. This house looks how I feel.

See, I believed in her to the point of worship. Would kneel, palms touching, hands clasped, eyes closed, to a god with her face, praying she would never leave. It felt as though my prayers were being heard, but the day she left came to me like a summer storm.

My nerves then exploded as though someone had lit fireworks along my veins.

This man knows it, feels it, that it’s only a matter of time until he can walk no more, and his only desire is to lie wherever he finds himself and sleep eternally. He can feel his body succumbing to this will as it grows heavier, as though he is pushing a rock up a mountain, only the mountain is the streets and the rock is his own body.

Michael imagines the heaven in which they reside, a heaven of justice, where peace reigns eternal.