When I got back to the shelter after trudging all the way back in the dark, all I found was trash. While I had been here with Elde, sure it had been ramshackle, it had been filthy and uncomfortable, but it had been a home in some way.

Now it was just trash. A big pile of trash.

But I was too tired to care about that. Too raw, too weary. It didn’t matter at all that it was just a big pile of garbage, all that mattered was that it was somewhere to rest. So I crawled in and laid down anyway.

I stared up into the darkness. Into the criss cross of dirty, rotting wooden planks that I could just somehow make out the shapes of.

Today… was too much.

I had seen too much. Fought too much. Hurt too much. Bled too much. Ran too much. Struggled too much. Sobbed too much. Felt too much.

Lost too much.

And as I stared up into the most sorry excuse for a roof I had ever known, somewhere along the way, I drifted off.

***************************************************************************************************************

Light was shining through the cracks in the shelter when my slumber fell away.

My body was still sore and tired. My eyes were red and dry. My head was aching, from what I had realised, and almost forgotten the feeling of, was a hangover. I hadn’t drunk anything since Earth and whatever was in Elde’s flask must have been strong despite it’s sweetness.

But mostly, I was heartbroken.

I was awake, but I didn’t muster myself to get up. I didn’t bother moving at all. I just kept on lying there, staring at the criss crossed planks above me as I listened to my breath go in and out. My only prerogative to keep my lungs working. In, and out. Inhale. Exhale.

I just kept on doing that. My thinking was gone. Even the impulse to think was out the window. All I had was my breathing, the heat around me, the light shining through the cracks and a heavy and dull ache constantly flaring throughout my body.

And that’s how time passed.

The light and warmth were there for a while, but eventually they began to fade and dim as darkness crept in. But still I kept breathing, until even that faded away before I somehow found myself waking up once more. And then all over again, another day came and went as I kept on breathing. In, and out. Inhale. Exhale.

But by the third day, my body demanded change.

My bladder was full, my bowels heavy, my throat dry and stomach rumbling. I had held out as long as I could but I had passed the point where my body would no longer continue to be ignored.

So I arose and finally got out of the shelter. I emptied my bladder and evacuated my bowels. I gulped down the last mouthfuls of water in my waterskin, but alas, there was no food for my stomach.

Though still without normal working brain function, I knew that food equaled coin, and I had coin I could use.

I made my way back into the shelter to where I remembered leaving it all. But when I found it, my heart, my emotions and everything else that had sunk somewhere out of reach, too heavy to carry, reared its head up violently from its depths.

The Purse!

What it would mean when I found it had escaped my mind when I went looking for it, but when I found it, the purse that Elde and I had dedicated our everything to next to his flask, both covered in a foul smelling crusted over disgusting gunk, the leftovers of his blood, it all came charging up at me. Like vomit.

The guilt, the shame, the regret, remorse, sadness, anger, self-loathing all of it, surged up in me as I tried to fight back the bile now at the back of my throat.

I flung it all away into the darkest corner of the shelter. But that wasn’t enough because I could still see it. So I took the spare clothes that Elde and I had scavenged and had used to keep us warm during the winter and piled them all on top of our purse and the flask. Then I pushed them away as far as I could into that dark corner. As far away from me as possible.

Unfortunately though, the feeling though lessened still remained, floating at the surface and once I was done, as fast as I could I scrambled and escaped from the shelter and back out in the open air, gasping and panting. Trying to push down all my sickening guilt and loathsome self-hatred.

It took some time but eventually my breathing settled and my emotions sunk down again to wherever they went as I pushed them all away. Having recovered from my episode however, that still left me with a major problem though, food.

I was not touching that money again. It was just not happening. But I still needed food, I still needed money, and with no serious thought I started walking to where I knew I could get money, and get food, just as I had done for all the days I had done before. It may have been later in the day and I now had to avoid getting too close to the civilians that were walking past me, but eventually, I made it to the docks where the rest of the beggars were sitting down, doing their thing. I wandered only a little while longer before I found a spot for myself where I could beg people at a good distance.

As I sat down, for a brief moment, the urge to perform like I always did welled up inside me, but alongside it came memories of Elde, closely tailed by the emotions I just couldn’t bear to feel.

So I pushed away the urge to perform and just did what all the other beggars did.

I Begged.

I was filthier than I was before, covered in dark stains that made me smell rotten and look worse than I ever had. The results showed too. I somewhere acknowledged at the end of the day that I had made the least amount of money I had ever made before on these docks, but that thought quickly left my head as the cart came by.

I don’t know if the man noticed anything and if he did, he didn’t didn’t bother mentioning it. All that mattered to him was my coin and all that mattered to me was his food. His rotten, spoiling and mouldy food; that I scoffed down as I always did before I joined the march back alongside all the others. Another day over.

When I woke up the next day I was still numb. But I had enough thinking capacity to go to the river and get some water, but after that, I went back again and joined the crowd of beggars on their morning march, just as I joined them on their way back in the evening.

As I did for the next day.

And then the next.

And then the week.

And then the next week.

And then the month.

And then the next month.

Until finally time didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered but doing what you had to do each day, everyday.

The same as everyone else.

One of them.