He looked towards the grey sky, staring up into the endless abyss that moved above him. The clouds were grey as they always were, and the trees that once were flourishing with pink blossoms now were rotting. Every time he stepped out of his house, the entire landscape was the same. Grey and empty.  

    It wasn’t much different in his own home, either. Same old couch, same old bed, same old creaky floorboards that clacked anytime his bone feet walked along it. He went to the bathroom to gaze into the mirror for the fifteenth time that day, hoping to see something more welcoming. He knew he shouldn’t expect anything different, but he always did. 

So, when he stared ahead and seen his pristine white skull and hollow eyes, he thought he could cry, although he lost that ability long ago. He tried to fake a smile, the same one he perfected years before. Yet again, he felt more sadness wash over him as he found he couldn’t. He was just a skeleton after all. But why, why after all these years of being nothing but bone, has he not gotten used to this? Why was he still so empty? Why couldn’t he just die?

    He continued staring into the mirror at his own emotionless face, but he could feel the tightness in his nonexistent chest and feel the pressure behind his empty eye sockets. His hand met the porcelain sink as it did every afternoon, something that would typically create a sound, but he had no ears. His jaw gaped in an attempt to scream, an attempt to hear himself, but was met by the same silence that plagued his existence. He couldn’t cry, he couldn’t scream, the skeletal birds that chirped out his window were nothing but quiet. He started the shower, letting the water run over his bones as he tried to shed the tears that he felt. 

Eventually, he quit keeping track of what day it was. He quit sleeping in his own bed, as it brought no more comfort. How could he enjoy it? There was nothing left in this hell that he could possibly enjoy.  

    Years passed and he grown used to everything. He quit trying to scream, he no longer felt like crying, and his reflection quit mattering to him. The only thing that brought him any sort of feeling was when he’d walk to the park with his satchel dangling from his shoulder. He’d take a seat on the same bench every day in the evening. He’d throw out the seed to the birds, and they’d come flocking in to eat. He thought it was funny, watching the bony little things eat the seed just for it to drop through their ribs.