Oblivion

Wretch. Not even that good in most people's eyes. Worthless, monstrous, depraved. And that ugly, pseudo-Greek word they always used. Incorrectly, but they used it anyway. Why let the truth get in the way of a good stereotype. The word he preferred was, in his view, much more illustrative of how he really felt, what he really wanted. With the most beautiful thing in the world as its first element, and the best thing one person could be for another as its second. And yes, right there in that middle syllable, what he really yearned for most of all, the missing magical ingredient to make his life complete, but which was forever denied him by the hatred of the world for what they assumed he was.
Until that day he could stand it no longer. He had walked into work, confronted his colleagues, the ones whose bigotry, whose sneering contempt had made his life a misery for so long. He'd had to suffer day after day in silence, but he was going to suffer no longer. No bullets flying, just the guided missiles of his words, fuelled by his superior intellect, no time for any more false modesty, no more pretence of being 'one of the lads'. 'I am a boylover, and I'm as good as you, with your stupidity and hypocrisy' shocked them all into silence, not one of them could even meet his eye, still less frame a response. He turned on his heel and left, heading for his home, where his revelation was repeated, to his wife, the woman who hated 'paedos' so much, who now knew she'd been married to a member of that despised underclass for almost 20 years.
Walking out of the front door, and climbing into his car, he felt as free as he'd ever felt. They had all seen him now, the mask had been shed, the real man below having his moment in the sun. The euphoria soon passed, though, he'd burned his bridges despite still having no hope of achieving that elusive goal of happiness, of fulfillment. He drove aimlessly for a while, before a plan crystallised in his mind.
Two hours later, he sat at the edge of an ice-cold moorland reservoir, a place he'd last visited 15 years earlier, a place of rock and wind and solitude. The pills he'd swallowed a few minutes earlier were beginning to take hold of his body, unconsciousness beckoned, siren-like, as he forced himself to his feet, shuffled forward like a hopeless drunk, hardly able to compel his legs to move him, before he began to topple headlong, the last sight registered by his darkening vision being the rippling surface of the water rushing up to meet him, to swallow him in its frigid maw, to carry him into oblivion.

****

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B