​A Moment of Self Reflection

“To carry these non-existent burdens so heavily affixed on my shoulders. A herculean effort it is to even continue breathing with this knot in my throat, as if I am being asphyxiated by the personification of what I feel. What I am slowly becoming. A marble statue of glamour and glory but no humanity. Eternally stone-hard, forever cold.” A solemn Knight, if one can even call him that anymore. Antlers affixed on top of his head, droopy ears on the sides of his head. Besides the characteristics of a deer, wearing nothing but a formal attire, almost entirely black save for the white shirt and his silken gloves, his long trenchcoat draped over his left shoulder as if it was a cape. He resembled a soulless drone not only because of what he wore but also the baggy, hollow eyes and a drowning air of melancholy that would never dissipate. Black hair that had been hastily combed to make a rather tiny ponytail at the back of his head. Skin pale as if he was sickly. Merely a husk of a man, the remainders of his soul had already snuffed out like a candle that had been battling an enormous typhoon for far too long.

“But, it doesn’t matter now. Does it? I found no solace clinging to the lie that I belonged somewhere. That I could have perhaps found a comrade in arms. Dreamy of me to say, maybe a lover whose embrace could hold the shards of my carved-out heart whole with a warm embrace. A safe haven for me to return to, a shoulder to cry on when I can’t do so outside. At the very least, a drinking buddy. Yet, it seems I had been far too naive.” A pathetic, self-pitying smile formed on his face. “What did I expect, really?” The smile would turn into a low cackle. His left hand would move to his face, hiding his eyes as he held his forehead. “I am a mercenary of some sort. A contract killer if I have to be. That is all. A rental tool that gets things ‘right’.” He faced himself, the mirror. His hand no longer on his face. “And I hate myself for it. And I hate the circumstances that made me the man I am today. And I hate that I am still kicking, still desiring, still able to hope and wish. To continuously run into a solid wall that I can never break through. Restless. Unable to find solace.” He stepped closer to the mirror. Facing his reflection, eyes as wide as they can be. Eerily staring into himself. “So, tell me. What do you want? What do I want? I can’t even tell. Yet you want something. What is it?” He received no answer, as he had expected himself.

Teeth gritted, in a moment of fury, he would land a blow right in the middle of the mirror with his right hand. Shattering it into countless tiny shards in one blow, the said shards cutting through and into his gloved hand. As if the floor was his canvas, he bled on it. An artwork of his anguish in literal and mental sense. Soon, falling onto his knees, fighting back tears. Now drowning in the silence of his surroundings, hands on ground, knees locked on the cold ground in an utmost defeated position. If you listened, perhaps you could make out the tiny noises to be muffled sobs besides his labored breath. But no tear ever made it out the blankly staring eyes, fixed on the ground with a million pieces of the broken mirror. Thus he remained still In the middle of his canvas drawn by blood, of solitude, anguish and boundless melancholy.