Waiting for the Sun

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wrote this months ago, and I eventually submitted it to a local writing publication. It was extremely well reviewed, and I decided that if I was to post something today, it might as well be the first thing I've ever finished.


t was not as such a long night, so much as one that didn't seem to end. Both of them sat in the same room, waiting for dawn to break. The sun, however, defied them both, leaving the poorly-lit room in the quasi-darkness it existed in. It had to come eventually, they both thought. It had to, but it didn't.

The room was small, but cozy in its own sense. It certainly felt lived in, with clutter in all the corners of the room. It was also very warm, the heater below the window blasting hot air into the room with the subdued rattle of machinery. He listened to it, counting the rattles and trying to find some pattern in the chaos. He grimaced; there wasn't. She kept watching the window, waiting for the sun.

It was too quiet, he thought. He could hear her breathing softly next to him, so barely audible over the heater, but that was all. No words were being shared. There was just the soft sounds of the body and the rattle of machines. It hadn't been like this before, hours ago, but that didn't matter much anymore. Things had changed.

The sky outside turned a crimson shade slowly, heralding the arrival of something new. Neither knew what it was, but they both knew that the instant that it came, the old way would die. It was terrifying to strike out that way, but there was not a thing he or anyone else could do.

As the sun began to creep over the horizon, he gave her one last embrace as everything they had known vanished with the long night.