It wasn't quick, it wasn't glorious; it was long and painful and not long, not nearly, never long enough. He felt like the world was dying, like the world was wrapped in white bandages lying on a white bed surrounded by grey concrete walls and dying.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

Numb acceptance in those eyes, eyes that should have been full of light and curiosity. Rage he wanted to shout Rage! He faught it, faught it like a wolf in a bear trap: he would have knawed his leg off if it were his. He wanted to see the reflection, see his resistance mirrored a hundred thousand times.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

He didn't want to see quiet, see resignation, see I'm just like everybody else. He didn't want to see white clothes under white sheets in a white bed, patient, waiting.

He stood in front of the mirror, and his reflection looked back with fading blue eyes too tired too disheartened too hurt to sparkle. The soul hovered somewhere between right and wrong and compromised and left hollow eyes and a hollow man to stare at him, still as death.

Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow.

And his own soul, blackened by military boots and guilty blood, offered no redemption to the damnation, the I did nothing I accomplished nothing I am worthless he saw, stark against grey blank walls. He could not act: the blind man did not want to see, the deaf man did not want to hear, the mute did not want to speak. He could not comfort; his words fell like mist, soft and useless.

And when he would have said Stay and Don't go and I love you, the words choked his throat and did not come. Death arrived with bright light and he was powerless against the glare.

Between the emotion and the response

The world ended with a shattered mirror.

falls the shadow.