Anthony's Literary Lens

Tag: alone

  • The Room Without Doors

    The Room Without Doors

    I wake up, as always, in the same room. The walls are gray, but I don’t remember if they were always gray or if they simply absorbed the color of my thoughts over time. There is a door, but it does not open. Or maybe it does, and I have forgotten how to turn the handle. In any case, I do not leave.

    Loneliness is not an event. It does not arrive with fanfare or explanation. It is a slow accumulation, like dust settling in corners you rarely notice. You do not decide to be alone; you simply wake up one day and realize that no one has knocked on your door for a long time.

    At first, I tried to fight it. I wrote letters, but I had no one to send them to. I walked the streets, but the people I passed were like shadows, their faces indistinct, their voices muffled. I tried to summon memories of warmth, of conversation, of touch. But memories are unreliable—paper-thin imitations of something that once had weight. Eventually, even they began to fade.

    There is a man who sometimes appears in my dreams. He wears a hat, smokes a cigarette, and speaks in riddles. Last night, he sat across from me at a café that no longer exists and stirred his coffee without drinking it.

    “You are mistaken,” he said. “You think loneliness is an absence, but it is not. It is a presence.”

    “A presence?” I asked.

    “Yes,” he said. “Like fog. Like hunger. It fills the spaces between things. It grows when you try to ignore it.”

    I woke up before I could ask him what to do.

    This morning, I stood in front of the mirror for a long time. My reflection looked unfamiliar, like a photograph left in the sun too long. I touched the glass, as if trying to confirm my own solidity. I wondered, briefly, if I had become a ghost. But no—ghosts haunt others. I haunt only myself.

    Outside, the world continues. People board trains, read newspapers, fall in love, make mistakes, grow old. I remain here, in my room without doors, waiting for something that will not come.

    Perhaps the man in my dream was right. Loneliness is not an absence. It is a thing with shape and substance. It sits beside me as I write this. It watches over my shoulder. It will be here tomorrow.

    And the day after that.

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  • Grounded

    Grounded

    alone, I watch the sky
    birdsong fades, a mournful cry
    lost, I stand and wait

    The wind whipped through the reeds, carrying with it the mournful cries of my flock. They were long gone, their V-formation etched into the fading light of the sky. I stood alone, an orphan of the skies, in a vast, empty landscape.


    I had always been a bit of an outlier, a dreamer who preferred the quiet solitude of the marshes to the boisterous company of my kin. But now, as the chill of autumn crept into the air, I felt a profound sense of loss. The warmth of their companionship, the comforting rhythm of their wings beating in unison, had been a constant in my life. Without them, I felt adrift, a leaf torn from its branch and carried by the currents of fate.


    I watched the sun dip below the horizon, casting long, dancing shadows across the water. The sky was ablaze with hues of orange, pink, and purple, but I found no beauty in it. It only served to highlight my isolation, a stark contrast to the vibrant spectacle that unfolded above.


    As the night fell, a cold wind began to blow, carrying with it, what sounded like, the distant howl of a lone wolf. I shivered, my feathers ruffled by the icy blast. I longed for the warmth of my flock, their bodies pressed together against the biting cold. But I knew that I was alone now, and that there was no turning back.


    I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my mind was filled with images of the past. I saw myself as a young gosling, learning to fly under the watchful eye of my mother. I remembered the thrill of soaring through the sky, the wind rushing past my face. I recalled the joy of finding food, the camaraderie of sharing a meal with my flock.


    When I finally drifted off to sleep, I dreamed of a world where I was not alone. I dreamed of flying alongside my flock, their honking filling the air with a joyous chorus. But when I woke, the dream was shattered, and I was once again alone in the cold, dark night.

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