Half -Alive by Silent Isabella

I am shivering again; it comes more frequently now. It seems I am getting closer – to what, I don’t know.

I don’t want to know.

You see, I have not exactly lived a righteous kind of life: I have worked as a dancer for this club for longer than I can remember, with many illicit liaisons in basements and dark alleyways besides; I have been in so many dark rooms filled with smoke, numb, as I always wake earlier than the form next to me, and creep silently to collect the clothes scattered and the money left on the bedside table; and I have sat for so many times in my tiny apartment, surrounded by needles and packets of powder, straining as I pull the cloth tight around my arm and search for a vein.

And so, it is fitting that, during my first ever visit to a doctor’s office, I find out that my T-cells are low.

At first, I tried to go about my usual business, probably being more daring than I actually was. I did many things that hurt a lot of people, many things that destroyed entire lives, many things that turned innocents into people like me, people who live with a guillotine hanging above their heads.

Then I met him; he who looked like light.

I was just entering the apartment building from another exploit, another visit to the dark man at the corner of the park who provided escape, when I heard him.

He was singing, singing a song that sounded like me. I stood silent, half-hidden in the darkness, and when he emerged from the rooftop with his lips pulled into a tight line, I laughed. I don’t know why I did, but I guess I just couldn’t be as numb as I wanted to be.

He went into his room, and with my heart in my throat, I knocked. He asked what I needed, and in a moment of complete insanity, I walked in and kissed him.

And I felt like me again.

And even though I know I am going to Hell in the next few minutes, even if I can’t see so clearly anymore, I am happy, happy that his arms are around me, happy that his face is the last thing I will ever see, happy that my song is on his lips, happy that he will stay longer than I, and happy, radiantly so, that even if I died a long time ago, in these last few moments, I am half-alive.

Fin.

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