Sleeping's overrated.

The boy and the old man share eyes across the table.

The man studies the youth, remembering his time amongst the beautiful and carefree.

Teenage years taken up with sleepless nights and never-resting urgency.

The endless days where, at your hands, nothing and everything fight, leaving bitten fingernails and bruised knuckles.

First car. Graduation day – the empty seat next to his father and sister.

His first love, her red hair lit by the morning sun.

The boy looks back on. Poor old bastard probably doesn’t know what day it is.

To be that old. To just sit and stare at the world as it blurs and vagueness smudges all truth and clarity.

‘How come they put you here?’ the old man asks.

‘I broke my mum’s heart too many times, what’s your excuse?’

The man pauses.

‘I’m guilty of neglect. I let time fall away from me.’

His hands are maps of the things they’d seen. Things he’d touched, hands he’d held, words he’d written – all evident to him among the purple veins.

‘I let minutes slip past. Minutes turn to hours, hours to days, days to weeks, weeks to years. This is my crime – I let the undertow carry me out without even putting up a fight.’

The boy’s clear blue eyes dart around the hall.

Rows of the elderly, each sitting opposite a boy clothed in blue overalls. Some of the oldest ones just sleep as the boys look despondent; others murmur nothings as the autumn evening turns to night through the window panes. The boys are watched by guards at the doors, rifles tucked and faces stern.

‘They think this will help us. Give something back to the community. The community’s only ever given me blue slips. I tried in school, I really did.’ the boy picks the table, uncomfortable in his uniform.

The old man sits back in his chair, taking in the boy. ‘How old are you?’

‘Seventeen, whatever that means.’

‘Let me guess. You feel torn. You feel a bursting, a breaking free from your childhood, only to find a wall a mile high. This wall consists of distrust; adults have done nothing to distrust you your entire life, and now you’re set to be one, they trust you the least.’

‘Yeah...’

‘I want you to put yourself in my shoes.’

‘What’s the poi..’

‘Just listen. Close your eyes. It’s midnight. You’re stood on a beach. You can feel the sand grinding beneath your boots, and the salty air is teasing your face.’

‘Where am I?’

‘Normandy.’

‘Where..?’

‘The sea whispering in the night is the only sound you can hear. The silence is heavy, as is the rifle and pack on your back.’

The boy opens his eyes, for a second, then shuts them again.

‘You can smell a fire. The aroma of burning is now filling your senses. You look away from the waves and see a line of trees in the distance, a tower of smoke rising from behind them. The trees stand dark and wide as you approach them, the flaps on your helmet swinging side to side. There is another smell underneath the burning that you cannot put your finger on just yet. The wood is inky black, yet you push through. You can hear the fire now, the whips and bursts of the flames.’

The boy’s brow starts to furrow.

‘You push through into a clearing and there it is, the glorious yet terrible blaze erupting in heat and sparks. The other smell is bothering you. You cannot place it. Cautiously, you check the clearing from behind a tree, trigger finger poised, yet trembling. When it’s safe you approach the fire. The heat is stifling. The smell is growing.’

The old man clutches the arm rests of his chair.

‘Something is growing in the back of your mind. You are beginning to recognise the smell.’

The boy’s eyes were now completely open.

‘It’s growing and growing and starting to freeze you up like rusted metal. A pure and complete cold is claiming every inch of your skull and spreading until you can’t tear your eyes away from what you can see in the fire.’

‘What can you see? What is it?’

‘You want to cry but the fire is torching the tears as they emerge from your eyes. You can see a human hand. You start to notice. The fire isn’t burning from wood. Gradually you notice feet. Clothing. A shoe.’

Minutes pass in silence. A single tear runs down the cheek of the boy. It’s the first time he’s cried since he was seven years old. 

‘What I’m trying to say is, don’t give up. Just don’t lose sight of all the things you stand to obtain in this life. No matter what you see, even if it breaks you down to your bones, you have to stand tall. I don’t know how long I knelt in the sand on that day. I wanted to stay there and burn. But this is the thing. When the sun rose, I’ve never seen such a beautiful sight in my life. Birds folded around the clouds as fierce oranges and purples laced the sky. The only thing that has even come close to matching that beauty was the birth of my girl.’

The boy’s head was in his hands. When he looked up, tears framed his eyes.

‘I’ve thrown it all away... I’ve already fucked up...’

‘No. You haven’t.’

The boy was surprised to find his hands clasped by the old man’s.

And at that moment, everything cleared. The boy felt the years that had surpassed the man, equally as he felt the years ahead of himself. He served his term in silence, early release for good behaviour. The first thing he did when he was free was run the five miles from the prison to his house, not stopping once. He found his mother there, hugged her tight and swore to support her. Throughout his life he would find himself in positions where he could stray from the path, where he could give in. Every single time he felt the heat of the fire on his face, the weight of the words of the old man with the weary eyes trapped in his world of pills and straight lines.

 There are fires of the like burning everywhere around. He just thought of the dawn, and held it until he could stand once more.