Cry Wolf

Content warning: suicide

He lives in the room at the end of the hall. Now, it was empty and static. The only movement was in the form of flashing light from the muted television. Everyone knew it was left on because the light could be seen through the unlovely crack above the door. And it wasn’t going to get fixed anytime soon; the landlord didn’t even live in the same state.

The sun had already set, but as the night goes on the room gets hotter and more stale. The faint melody of rain shower beating against the window is the only sound. This doesn’t disturb the belongings. They actually prefer being left alone. When he gets home, they know what they’ll have to endure. He could be out fishing at the pier, taking his mind off of dealing with the reality that awaits him at home. Or worse, he could be drinking.

The guests in the other rooms consume their days with distractions, but his return is always in the back of their minds. Aside from the room at the end of the hall, the building was otherwise peaceful, often smelling of lavender or popcorn. During the day, children's laughter could be heard coming from the school around the corner. A construction worker and his wife live across the hall of the man’s room, raising their two girls in a space no bigger than his. A nursing student and her shepherd share a wall with the man’s room. Things have gotten so bad, she has been wanting to leave for months.

Just beneath the room at the end of the hall, was an elderly lady with an estranged family and deteriorating senses. The man didn’t know any of this though. He avoided people. Strangers gave him anxiety and family gave him tough love. He had never prepared himself to handle any of that.

Besides the muffled sound of the rain outside, tonight was quiet. The guests wondered how long serenity would last this time and his belongings wondered how long until they come face-to-face with the man who can’t face himself.

Half past midnight, and the highly favored calm seemingly comes to an end. A door slams in the distance, predicting his nearing. The belongings hear keys shaking from outside the room, and brace themselves for what’s to come. Then, the door swings open, with it bringing unpleasant yellow light from the hall.

In the door frame stands the man, tall and lanky. The light from behind him casts a shadow across his face, but the flashing from the television reveals brief expressions. Something is different about him tonight, something about his face brings sorrow to the room. No longer is he the man with an angry face, destroying everything in sight. Tonight he looks defeated.

A puddle begins to form beneath his feet as he removes his leather boots and dampened trench coat, carefully placing the jacket over the back of his desk chair. He looks down, reaches to the ground and picks up a broken bottle from the night before. As he makes his way to the bed, he steps on the broken glass left behind from the bottle, but his thick wool socks spared him any pain. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he holds the bottle between his hands and cries.

He wondered if the other guests would hear him if he cried loud enough, if they would even come to check on him after all that he’s done. Or would they let him cry and drown in his sorrows, so that he could learn a lesson? This wasn’t the first time he’s asked himself these questions, it’s how he’s lived his entire life.

He knows that when he makes a big enough scene, someone will see him. And when they finally see him, they will fix him. Or so he thought. Almost thirty years later, and he’s still on this path of destructiveness and self-loathing. It’s finally brought him to this point.

The answer wasn’t within someone else, or inside the bottle he held in his hand. The answer was himself. Only, he never came to realize this. He held the bottle tighter in his hands and looked around his room at his belongings. These were the only things that have ever brought him joy, and even they hated him.

Three-quarters past midnight and the room became static again. The belonging’s on edge returned to their state of calm and the guests fell asleep. The television continued to play silently and the rain lasted throughout the night.

It took seventy-two hours for the nursing student to notice the stench coming from the end of the hall. She wanted to believe it was just a dead rat that got trapped in the wall, but that was fighting her intuition. It had been quiet for three days, which was unheard of living next to that raging cocksucker.

The room at the end of the hall that was once just an angry man's home, became an artifact of grief. The man who lived there was gone, but the residual energy would linger for some time. The other guests, including the nurse, never felt sorry though. They couldn’t live with the man at the end of the hall, but they could live with the guilt that comes with being comfortable.

Nobody had the decency to try to understand the man, but that wasn’t their fault. Like everyone else, they had their own issues to solve, their own misery to fight back. The man would never admit that though — that other people might have bigger issues than his own. But that wasn’t his fault either.

A few hours after the student discovered the body, the investigators arrived. And after them, the coroner to take the body. Last to visit the room was the landlord, who flew in from out-of-state. He would never know what happened to the man and what drove him to his end. And once all of the belongings were removed, only the walls could pass along the sorrowful man’s story.