The Glass Panel

On a warm, spring morning, Glenn Ward woke again in a cold sweat. The same ridiculous nightmare about the ghost tapping on his window had plagued him for perhaps half a year’s time now, and it showed no signs of dissipating. There was nothing to be feared from the nightmare, yet some part of it felt utterly terrifying, and it send a shiver down his back.
As he reluctantly stumbled out of bed, running into every possible obstacle between the bedroom and the bathroom, he was hardly aware of his surroundings. The sky was gray and dim today, and the little overcasted light that shone shined through his large, bolted window served to illuminate the room as he drew the curtains, dispelling the shadows from the nooks and crannies of his room. The room was disgustingly disorganized; a beer can lay half-crushed on the floor; books lay strewn about; and a vast variety of writing supplies and papers blotted out the thick, brown shade of his mahogany desk.
        Glenn brushed his teeth in an orderly, even robotic manner. He passed the toothbrush back and forth, back and forth. As he did so, he stared blankly in the mirror. He noticed the boringly monochromatic towel that rest upon a dulled towel rack. His eyes darted around the sides of the mirror, never resting too long upon any one point, and yet never resting upon the center of the mirror either. While he was staring into the mirror, the reflection pierced into him, ferociously impaling him with a feeling of disgust. Glenn wondered why he had never realized just how uncomfortable it was to look at himself for a long period of time until he looked in his mirror. The longer he stared into the mirror, the more distorted the images appeared, until he began to see himself, twenty years younger, staring boldly back at him with the steely glint in his eyes when he was young and strong. The memories of that bygone time were too much for him, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. He blinked, and the image was gone.
        As he walked into the kitchen and prepared a quick breakfast, Glenn grabbed the TV remote. In the small apartment where he lived, the kitchen was connected to the living room, with a small table in between where he sat down to eat. He turned on the television to the morning news, and pouring himself some milk to accompany his usual assortment of scrambled eggs, bacon, and bread. After finishing a broadcast on some disaster that occurred somewhere, the news anchor then began a story about the latest development at Aurora Technologies, one of the largest companies in the high-tech industry, producing all things innovative from artificial intelligence to new smart devices. Glenn worked at Aurora, but he was decidedly old-fashioned to be working at a company whose mission it was to usher in the technologies of tomorrow. For Glenn was not an innovator or an engineer, the two roles that were the heart and soul of the company, but instead just a simple accountant, spending all day examining numbers with a high amount of required precision. It was a miracle the company had not yet replaced his occupation with a computer. After all, what was there for this mechanically monotonous man that a computer could not accomplish a thousand times better?
        It was halfway through that news story that Glenn froze. On the television was the ridiculously fake complexion of his ex-wife Linda, talking about a new product launch, no doubt. The screen became flashing lights and the sounds around him melted away as he began to reflect on his disastrous marriage which had concluded just over three years ago. There was a time, twenty years ago, when everything had seemed perfect. Never-ending summer days washed away by frozen desserts and visits to the beach; sitting under the great oak tree and sharing childhood memories as the greenery around them faded to shades of brown and gold; sharing some hot chocolate in the comfortable little house that was cradled by the blizzard outside; and best of all, lying down in an open field, staring at the wispy clouds that passed by as the flora around shined again, teeming with life. But then, ten years ago, Glenn had moved to the city to get a job at Aurora, at the time just a small company with big dreams. The variety of nature’s seasons dissolved with his relocation, and Mother Nature’s palette of vivid colors dissipated into gray. A smothering feeling, almost like a disease, ran virulent within the unknown reaches of his mind, and Glenn’s cheerful demeanor vanished like an apparition.
        It was then that he must have changed. Like the city he now lived in, he became apathetic and exacting of himself. His sharp personality vanished within barely a year’s time. For a while, this was admirable. Friends praised him on his immense ability to stay focused for long periods of time, and were amazed by how effectively he could work the most menial jobs without ever complaining. Co-workers nicknamed him “Glenn-Bot” in admiration, and managers frequently gave him raises. But as time passed and people began to interact with him more often in the office, they found him to be uniquely drab. He could barely speak a few lackluster words in a conversation before the flow of dialogue was dead and the atmosphere descended into an uncomfortably loud silence. Linda Stevens was a very kind woman, and she was exceptionally understanding too. But after seven long years of this torturous ennui, she too gave in. There must be some animal instinct, some primal urge from the far depths of the mind that forces humans to live a life greater than the mere survival of animals. The same urge that fueled human development and innovation for millenia surged within Linda, and however unwillingly and troubled, made the decision to dissolve their union.
        In the wake of these events, Glenn became even more reclusive. He thought that Linda had understood him best and known what was happening, and might have even been able to save him. He held on strongly to this belief. And so when the divorce happened and his life was shattered, the basic tenets of his existence were undermined. He sank into a void of his own creation, disappearing beneath the lights that once illuminated his face with color, drowning in the pale shadows that overtook them. The eviscerating process that had begun with the shift into the city concluded subtly. He was no more than a zombie; dead without being dead.
        And so, Glenn put on one of many matching suits, carefully walked down nine flights of stairs, and walked the same eighty-seven paces to the bus stop. He sat on the bus with his suitcase and looked out the window. The same assortment of shops that he saw every day flew by him. A variety of shops and services colored the two sides of the streets. At the corner of Main Street and Seventh Street the bus stopped, and Glenn’s co-worker Gregg, one of the only people who still talked to him, got on the bus. Gregg, seeing an empty spot right next to Glenn, sat down, beaming with a radiant smile. The two of them were in stark contrast to each other. Though both men were similar in age, Glenn looked much older than he was, and Gregg looked much younger than he was. Glenn wore a tired, sinking look on his face, while Gregg appeared constantly energetic, as if he was ready to run a marathon. Glenn kept his posture strictly rigid, while Gregg was restlessly fidgeting yet comfortably reclining.
        Gregg, of course being his amiable self, commented on Aurora’s latest innovation and the brilliance of the team Linda had led when he was silenced by a slight twitching in Glenn’s face. Naive (and even childish sometimes) as he was, he knew the limits well, and could muster some degree of control over himself. A rapid switch of subject to the latest events in the sports realm quelled the twitching, and Gregg breathed a small sigh of relief in knowing that he had narrowly averted a crisis. Gregg felt sure that Glenn was bottling something up, and yet some unimaginably torturous force was keeping him from opening up. But he knew not how to help, and so he always attempted to dodge the dangerous conversational topics when around Glenn.
        But even with this immensely friendly conversationalist by his side, Glenn maintained his taciturn attitude. His mind was on other things. He looked out the window again, looking at everything but seeing nothing. He heard the sounds of the city, the cacophony of traffic, the hum of the bus’ engine, the voices of the bus passengers, the voice of Gregg talking about some athlete setting some record, the voice of his own body muttering occasional meaningless responses to the endless stream of chatter.
Glenn exited the bus, and walked into the shining skyscrapers of Aurora Technologies. It was another day. A bright, sunny day. A day that would have filled anyone but Glenn with joy. But as he entered the office, face frozen like the cold stare of a worn-away statue, he felt no joy. He took an elevator ride upwards, and shambled over to his desk. He sat down and started to chip away at that day's work.
For the longest time, he had taken solace in his work. Work had been the one thing he had taken solace in. It was simple. He understood it. It was straightforward. He was comfortable with it. Compared to the maelstrom that the rest of his life had become, his work was the one thing that he found no chaos with. But recently, Glenn felt a shift in the air. The weight of more disapproving stares was weighing on him. And these were not just colleagues. These included the managers and overseers. At first Glenn did not realize, but he was soon finding the disapproval uncomfortable. He was not particularly important to the company. He did not belong to the brilliant minds who paved the future. He was just another cog in the machine.
Once, he had thought himself capable of great and creative things. But the prerequisites of being a creative mind required the courage to challenge fate--posing a challenge to the world and stating one's position firmly, and seeing their projects through to the end. Glenn lacked his courage. He opted for a safe route in accounting in order to guarantee a decent existence in the future. Back then, things had been so great. He'd had fun and enjoyed life, with a circle of friends around him. Where were those friends now? Glenn blanked. He'd remember that Luke moved away in pursuit of his dreams, that Sidney had found employment somewhere else in the city, and that Mark went to go work with the government. They'd all gone their separate paths after college. They vowed to make it big one day. They swore they would rise above the ranks of the ordinary and prove themselves all to be famous, but in the end it seemed that no one made it to be bigger than the town they lived in.
And soon, the work day ended. Frivolously, many people left and went home. Glenn took the slow strides back to the bus. Gregg had gone out drinking with other colleagues, so Glenn sat, leaning against the window for the whole ride home. He looked out the window at the same shops, most of which were getting ready for the nightly customers who went there.
The same winding-down routine awaited him when he returned to the bus stop. Eighty-seven paces back. Nine flights of stairs. Though it was dinnertime, Glenn was not hungry. Instead, he roamed the rooms of his apartment, feeling an increasing painful throbbing somewhere deep within him. Waves of cold sweat followed this. Soon, inexplicably, he had begun to shake.
He felt some immense tension within him. It was indescribably suffocating. Something begged to be let out. In a moment of weakness, Glenn gave out to the urge, and picked up a chair, charging at the window. Time seemed to slow down.
The window shattered, and there was a brief moment of pain as angry shards of glass exploded everywhere.
The chair broke, and lay in pieces on the ground.
Glenn looked out the window, and the fresh air seemed to quell his rage.
Head throbbing, he saw a bird flying through the night air.
The city remained ever busy below.
He climbed a little bit out of the window.
The bird, interested, perched on his shoulder.
What freedom this bird had! It was free to go wherever it desired. It could fly...
And as a mass of different emotions overcame Glenn, he too wanted to fly. So he did. And in that moment, just for a moment, there was glory,  success, and triumph in his hollowed eyes.
Only for a moment, as he charged through the glass panel, did he feel free again. And he decided to take back this freedom for the rest of his life.
And the rest of his life was indeed very free.

Reflections Upon Loss

I saw it wash over me, an ocean of waves neither dam nor dike could hinder; a disconcerting calmness, like the symphony of discordant seagulls crying out in the distance. The sea washes this same beach for decades, centuries, millenia, and the beach does not complain. The air strokes the foamy crests, and the water does not respond. It was as if all were frozen, a painting to be seen from afar, yet moving somehow, and yet not at all. Everything was terribly still and yet in the darkness, in the shadowed reaches of the sea I swear I could see something, but once I looked, it was not there. The unknown abyss’ reaches brought with it a tremendously terrifying calmness, like a friend who soothes, or at least tries to, while in reality they are just raking over the same traumatic memory, best forgotten, over and over, reminding the poor victim of their vices, of their failures, of Fate’s cruel hand, of Destiny’s cruel roads. Amidst the void I may have seen the Kraken, a beast ruling the sea. There are many fish in the sea. But the Kraken is unique. It grabs on, capturing you, and never letting go…the sailors tell stories of it long after it is gone, in the same way I remember Her long after she is gone. Her charm latches onto you and never lets go. Nonetheless, I wanted to know. I wanted to find out why. I wished the emptiness beneath the sea would tell me. But it remained silent and solemn. And when I focused with all my might, I could hear the darkness speak to me. Give up. But I would not. Surely there was nothing to be achieved by giving in? I did not have Her… but I would. I would see to that.

Driftwood. Dead, rotting, forever silent. An idea! The fibery hand of nature reaching from the earth, trying to grasp the sky; the sky kisses the leaves and rustles the thin greenery, sizes ranging from oily bright thick to a feathery silhouette. The leaves of that tree fall upon the water, and thus I have not forgotten. And I hope too, that I am not forgotten. I know She is not forgotten, for I am still yet here. The sea brought me no answers, but perhaps amidst the unique blossoms and branches of the sturdy trunk would. But I was wrong. The oldened tree turned away when I looked for guidance, and I knew my cause was for nothing. A refusal to answer incited rage within. I would not stand for this insolence! I rushed to the tree, and struck it! The tree answered with a punch of its own, a well-placed one right to my forehead. I looked over and saw the scattered branch with its leaves dashed upon the ground and over my body. The leaves looked alike, but I knew it was not true. Perhaps there are many leaves for each twig, many twigs for each branch, many branches for each tree, many trees for each world. But among all this variety I knew only Her was special. It was as if she was the unique, fruit-bearing bud on an otherwise barren tree.

Perhaps somewhere among the sands were the answer. Was it not a common theme, the sands of time revealing the answers? I scattered the miniscule molecules, but the desolation of gray, beige, and white-tinted yellow refused to respond. The sea washed up again and again upon these forsaken dunes. The dunes do not complain. They will never complain. And they told me this. The dunes, they said there was no need to complain. Complaining is useless. And in the gravity of that moment I felt the empty calmness fall over me like suffocatingly heavy dust, trapping me and numbing my senses… a flash of horror, and I felt myself sinking backwards into the sand, further and further, disappearing… The sand looked all the same. The pebbles and stones amidst it were meaningless to me. I hated this. It meant nothing, and I was losing hope…

Hope, the last flicker of light. The sun had left me to my useless meanderings. It was gone. And as it left, the sun must have met the moon halfway and warned it not to show itself, lest it be pestered by my pestiferous questioning. And so I was bathed in darkness. She was gone. Long gone. I stared at the icy depths I could not see. I felt the cold wind’s breath I could not taste. I breathed the stink of the sea I could not smell. I listened to the call of the water I could not hear.

And deep within me, I felt that which I could not feel.

A Boy in the Midst of Battle

An explosive shell detonated barely ten feet away from where the battered soldier lay. He felt a small shower of dirt rain over his back, and coughed from the thick cloud of smoke coming from the crater. And yet, he had to push on. This was his only hope of survival. The enemy had surrounded his squad, and he was running out of options. Three hours after they set out to take an enemy base, a surprise attack had left them cut off from the rest of the army, from the safety and shelter that that presence provided.
The ambush resulted the enemy blocking their retreat path, effectively leaving them stranded deep in dangerous territory. The enemy attacked from two directions, catching them in a pincer movement. It seemed hopeless. After all, they simply did not have the firepower or the manpower to break through, and they were cut off too far from other friendly forces that might provide assistance.

But the young soldier knew he had to take action. He wanted to make at least an attempt at survival. If I've gotta die in the end anyways, I'd rather die trying to survive, he thought. The enemy was slowly surrounding them from both in front and behind them, and had closed in on one of their side flanks as well. Knowing this, the soldier quickly realized to attempt a mad dash for the relatively unsupported remaining flank. With a loud, rallying cry, he surged forward and his companions followed...


...and they did it! They broke through the opponent's defense, and with a long pass from the quarterback, ran the football all the way to the end. Touchdown! Afterwards that play was celebrated as the defining play of the game, and the quarterback, among many of the other players who were very popular amongst the students of this high school, were picked up and paraded around.
Not him, though. He was always much of a loner, spending his days at school like everyone else, yet away from the crowd. His nights were spent reading and browsing the Internet, bouncing between his parents' houses like a tennis ball caught up in a particularly intense rally. He had no idea how his parents had settled the issues of custody. But he didn't care... or rather, couldn't care. Feelings didn't come to him in the same way they did to everyone else at school, at least not anymore. Sometimes, he thought back and decided that when he was much younger, and much more naïve, he'd been normal like everyone else.
Then something happened. Maybe it was the alcoholism of his father, maybe it was the divorce that followed, maybe it was the fact that his friends had all somehow moved away or just become less friendly. It was probably a lack of proximity that started as a small swirl in the sea, and grew to become the turbulent maelstrom that now constituted his existence. In short, it seemed no one knew him anymore, that he was alone in the world to deal with his troubles...


...and so the soldier thought back to his best friend in the army. Together, they had been deployed on a separate mission a few months ago. The helicopter they were in was taking heavy fire, and had been shot down. With no communications in an unknown and unforgiving territory, they set up a small camp temporarily while figuring out their next course of action.
The next morning, when the soldier awakened, his best friend was nowhere to be seen. Other members of the squad told him his friend had left to forage for food and never come back. Shortly after they began searching for him, an enemy regiment in the area attacked, forcing their evacuation. His friend was listed as missing in action and presumed to be dead.
Since then, he had very few people to talk to. No one seemed to understand him anymore. He descended into isolation and was imprisoned among the confines of his new mentality of solitude. But he knew that this was important. If he wanted any chance at living a normal life, at recovering the peace and quiet that was the time before everything devolved into chaos. The demons of the enemy threatened his home and everything he had known, so he must push on. He must continue to fight. A lethargic calmness flooded his body, and he closed his eyes only for a moment, but drifted off into sleep anyways...


...to wake up in a cold sweat. He'd had a dream that he was walking down a road, but the road had an abrupt end at the edge of a cliff in front of him. The closer he was to the precipice, the fast he walked, until walking became jogging and jogging became running. Soon, he was at a full sprint, running to the precipice as fast as he could, but fearing the precipice, dashing towards certain doom, but unable to stop, feeling that any moment now the ground would give way to empty air and he would fall, fall into the abyss, the dismal caverns, away from everything familiar. And as he fell, he felt a strong pushing force, pushing him from all directions, squeezing him until he could not breathe, applying pressure until he felt he must explode-
And then it jolted him from his sleep. For a moment, he was in a state of limbo, not sure of his surroundings. Then waves of certainty and calmness that only reality can provide washed over him; and it was as if he had awakened a second time. Back in the real world, he felt safer. He had control. Turning over and looking at his alarm, he'd seen he was late for school. But what was the point? Why go to school only to be met by the poisonous tongues of a hundred blank faces, taunting and jesting and making merry with themselves, at his expense? Because he had no friends, no allies in this fight, the solitude at home amounted to torture at school. An overwhelming sense of hopelessness turned to lethargy, and he didn't want to get up.
And so it seemed that his only reason for continuing to go to school, to continue his daily routines was really just to continue for the sake of continuing. Some indescribable urge was still compelling him, and finally, he got up and prepared for school, with some bare semblance of hurriedness...

...The soldier was now all alone. They had broke through the unsupported flank, only to find the enemy a hundredfold reinforced by the sudden swarming of troops. He had been separated in the shootout, and caught alone. Enemy artillery has shredded most of his allies to pieces. And though he was, at least for the moment, safe, he knew it was very quickly about to be over. Give up. It's useless. You'll never make it out, a voice in his head was saying. And for a moment, he almost dropped his gun and succumbed to the numbness of hunger and weariness that were crushing him. But he still had one last purpose. He wanted to escape. This was his last chance. Mustering his last reserves of brainpower and cunningness, he devised a plan.
He would find a nice cluster of bushes and shrubbery with which to hide in, and wait for the enemy to close in on the area. Once the enemy passed him in their searches for any survivors, he would jump out and dash to safety. It was a good idea, and he was fortunate to have found the perfect space for doing so moments later. He quickly jumped into a small recess in the ground, covered by the undergrowths of the jungle, and decided to wait it out...

...after the grueling hours spent at school, the boy returned home, dropped his backpack, and ran over to his table to just start drawing.  He had been told he had talent, that he was able to draw very well, that every image was almost lifelike. And so, he took solace in drawing, hoping that one day his drawings would carry him away to the utopia where they came from.
But, ever since the divorce he and his mother had been hard-pressed for money. His mother was also subject to bouts of anger, and when she wasn't yelling at him she was staring at the television with a blank, expressionless face. This particular day, his mother had walked into his room and saw him completely lost in his drawings. After all, art had almost become a second reality for him. But his mother flew into a fit a rage again. She yelled about the uselessness of art, about how art would not make anyone any money, and about how he was useless.
In that moment, he couldn't explain it. But something was falling from him. Something that he never knew was a part of him. And it was gone, quickly. It all happened too quickly. Everything was becoming a blur...

...a blur of green and brown was all he saw. He'd dodged the enemy and was making the mad dash to the allied forces he knew must be around here somewhere. And then, he saw it. A clearing in the thick jungle. He had no idea how far he'd ran to get here. He continued to run towards the clearing, and saw the uniforms of a thousand friendly forces, almost welcoming him back.

But he had not stopped to consider how he appeared to these forces. Covered in mud, flaying his arms out, and catching the allies by surprise.

The commanders were in shock for only a moment. And then they gave the order to fire.
               
Bullets ripped through his body. The soldier looked on at his comrades, all of whom had blank faces. He was falling, just like in his dream. He couldn't breathe. The air itself was crushing him. And the enemy, following his path, emerged out of the forest and attacked. Casualties were high that day, and both sides of the conflict were forced to retreat.
               
No one went back for the soldier's body. Betrayed by his own allied forces, he collapsed in the thicket and watched as everything became a haze. The enemy would eventually overrun allied forces in the region, and force their withdrawal. It was over...

...And so, he'd lost the battle. He was caving, and felt the weight of the world collapse his shoulders. He wanted to give up. It wasn't hard. He had the means to finish right here, in his home. And like a soldier who had been betrayed by his own allies, he was a boy betrayed by his own mind.
Give up...