The long & transparent glass door that separates the living room from it's balcony, stood in silence as the white smoke engulfed every inch of its frame. It appeared as if the thirteenth floor apartment, facing the glistening Bay of Bengal, was caught on fire.
It was almost dawn when a man in his late twenties walked out of the balcony in a loose melange tshirt and sat on the floor, looking skywards. Ryan lit up the last cigarette of the pack and took a long drag with his eyes closed. He slowly opened his eyes while releasing the white smoke from the corner of his mouth. He leaned back on the half open door, watching the pale blue sky in front. The trapped smoke that previously engulfed the glass door, found it's way to freedom as it ran away from the open door, through Ryan and upwards.
The past weeks' weren't really kind to him. One after the other, the loosely held threads of his career and relationship broke away. He did try to hold them together but sometimes, it's a little too late to make any amends. He took the last puff and nipped the bud on the floor as he got up with disgust in his eyes. Disgust of what he has become, regret on what he could have been.
The cigarettes buds littered all across the balcony floor, the three plants, that Ryan had held close to his heart, all dried up and lost; the place was turning into a heap of dust and all he could do was to watch. He stepped inside, towards his wardrobe where he found a crumpled shirt that he uninterestedly wore. He slowly tucked it into the old jeans that he was wearing, and walked out with his car keys in the hand. The i20 that he brought an year back looked much older than it really was, standing in the dark at the very end of the parking. Ryan loosened the hand brake and drove to his office, for one last day.
The man who drove the sales numbers off the chart for the company, year on year, sat in his chair staring at multiple photographs on his cubicle wall. There was a tinge of wetness in Ryan's eyes but he was too conscious to never let a tear fall. He packed up his stuff into a cardboard box and kept it to his right, & waited for the clock to turn 6.
Sometimes the trough is too deep to get out from, leaving only a faint hope for a crest, someday. However, in Ryan's case, the hope had long disappeared. He carefully lifted the cardboard box as the clock beeped at 6, and moved towards the parking, without even bidding a final goodbye to all the ones who were once close to him. It wasn't that the others didn't try to cheer him up but he just never responded to them.
Ryan sat back in his car, closed the doors and the windows, and looked in front blankly. His hand was trembling as he tried to push the key in. On the third try, the key fell down from his hand and he had no energy left to pick it up. He put his head on the steering with his fist banging his thigh. He suddenly sprung back and shrieked at top of his voice. The pain followed as the tears flowed across his cheeks. The deep hurt that he felt for long kept aching for more. It was almost after fifteen minutes that he stabilized. He sat in silence, exhausted & empty. He finally gathered courage & picked up the key, and drove out into the fading sun, back to his apartment.
With a cup of black coffee in his hand, Ryan walked out onto the balcony. He glanced at the evening sky as he slowly kicked the cigarettes buds to the left corner, collecting all of them together. He looked at the empty floor and finally smiled.
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