“What on earth is wrong?” Shadira asked, her big brown eyes searching for an answer in my steel gray eyes.

“It’s nothing.” I answered, trying to get her to leave.

“That isn’t true. I’ve heard the screams from your room. It’s every night! What is wrong?”

It was true. But she wasn’t going to know that. “No. Just leave me alone Shadira.” I turned around to walk away from her. She roughly grabbed my shoulder and slapped me. “TELL ME NOW!” I could see a fear in her eyes. She was afraid of what she just did, scared that I would punish her. But I couldn’t do anything.

I’d been in this dark city many years now. I knew it didn’t make me happy. I’d been depressed for years. I questioned my existence. This wasn’t where I had been born. I was born in a different place. It was a sweet town. There were problems, no doubt, but people there tried to act as close as they could to the One above. I could always see the stark difference between the city and the town. The town was sometimes boring, but there was a certain feeling that it achieved in the soul. Almost like the gravity there wasn’t quite as strong. Sadly, I had been drawn into the city. I regretted it with every fiber in my soul. Every day was like another dreary showcase of my stupid decisions. In the city, it was a very different place.

“TELL ME!” Shadira screamed again, losing her shyness, and gaining a new kind of boldness. I shook my shoulder from her grasp and began to walk away. As I walked away, I could hear the shrieks and wails from Shadira, going as far as to shout unpleasant words directed at me. I walked out of my cold house and into the colder city. The streets smelled disgusting, but in my self defeat, I had found a pleasant tone in that stench. The town never smelled like this. In part, the stench was from the waste that people didn’t clean off of the streets, but it was also from the alcohol, the drugs, and the putrid smell of those who wouldn’t wash themselves. In the town, people took cleanliness seriously. There were areas far from the town for waste, and every Sunday we burned it. People diligently took showers. Those who had forgotten to were respectfully reminded to shower. Sadly, because those who lived in the town were just reflections of perfection, and not perfection itself, there were problems with this system. Burning the waste wasn’t always a very controlled fire, and would occasionally burn out of control, and hurt someone. Some people who showered daily would get very angry at those who didn’t. Some of those people who were shouted at got very offended, and leaved in a huff. I always hated when that would happen, and I questioned our leaders greatly. However, now at the city, I could see that while our system wasn’t perfect, it was much better than this.

I heard singing from a house. The people in the city loved music, but it wasn’t the kind that we sung in our town. In the city, they sang of how great they were, and how many people they had hurt. Sometimes the music was sad, a song of how they were hurt, or a song of how they were terrible. People in the city had many levels of self defeat. Some hid from their own brokeness, claiming that they were fine, and hating those in the town. Others didn’t care about those in the town. “Let them do as they please,” they said. “If I could be like them, I would.” Of course, these people would never take the steps to go to the town, but merely wish from afar. There were also those who did believe in the One above, but they were often misguided because they were too close to the city. Their music was a confusing mix of the town and the city. They tried very hard not to offend those in the city, because they were too close to the city and feared its power. They spoke of how wonderful the One above was, so some people would join them, but often many were displeased because of the trials they would face. I myself had gone to those meetings. I could see the error in their ways, but it seemed better than what I had found in the city. Even though many of these people were misguided and too close to the cities, many of them were good people, trying to do what they thought was right. I pitied them. Of course, I really wasn’t in a place to do so.

The stench grew worse. Soon I couldn’t find the pleasant tone in it. I looked around curiously, searching why it stank so. That’s when I noticed it. My own skin had begun to glow slightly, and I felt a deep pain in my heart.

More than anything, I want to go home. But I shook off the pain, and the glow disappeared. I know that I can’t go home, because of everything I have seen… and everything I’ve done…

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