Retreat

"Come, Daniel, my friend. It's time."

No goodbyes.

Warm sand presses against my soles—greedy, patient.

I close my eyes.

No difference.

Only black. Endless black.

The wind scourges my wet skin.

My tongue tastes of copper and dust.

My fingers numb at the tips.

My vision narrows to pinpricks of gold.

I want to collapse.

I want the roar back—the flesh peeled from bone, the mercy of being finished.

But I do not fall.

I walk.

I follow him into the night, the boat, the jet, the hatch that swallows me whole.

I jump.

Freefall is a scream without sound.

Then the chute cracks open, and the desert rises—gold, infinite.

Days bleed into nights, bleed into fire.

Peace comes at last, cold and clean and absolute.

So this is how a man dies—

one unwilling step at a time,

in silence, already forgotten, bones bleaching under an indifferent sun.

I close my eyes.

This time, the darkness takes me.