THE LITTLE THINGS

 

THE LITTLE THINGS
CHAPTER SIX
Sheffield, United Kingdom
Five Years Later

Sheldon had returned to Sheffield carrying nothing but his despair. The funeral was over, the condolences spent, and now silence sat heavy on his shoulders. His mother—the one person who had been his anchor—was gone, and the world felt hollow. His emotions churned like a storm: hate, despair, depression, and an ache so deep it left his eyes sunken, his skin pale and bloodless. He looked like a man unmoored from life.

He unlocked the door to his mother’s house, and the moment he stepped inside it was as though a ghost had opened the door with him. The air felt colder, stale, like the walls themselves were grieving. Her absence was everywhere—in the quiet halls, in the muted hum of the fridge, in the faint smell of her perfume still clinging to the curtains. He could not accept she was gone. His mother, his beacon, his last constant, was now buried in the earth and resting with angels.

The kitchen told the story of her final moments. Pots and pans lay abandoned in the sink, batter crusted in bowls. Half-baked pancakes remained in the oven, lifeless and forgotten. The television flickered muted images in the living room, a strange, surreal theater with no audience.

Grief struck him like a blade. In the middle of the kitchen, Sheldon broke. He fell to his knees, his sobs echoing against the cold tiles, tears streaming down his face like a fountain unleashed. He whispered her name into the empty air, as though the walls might whisper it back.

Before she had fallen sick, he had managed to get a small job at the local supermarket as a shop assistant. Now, on the kitchen counter lay the proof of his unraveling life—bills spread out like a grim deck of cards: foreclosure notices, electricity arrears, hospital charges. His meager salary would never cover them. Staring at the papers, a dark thought crept in—a thought he hadn’t allowed himself in years. Suicide.

He began to pack. Clothes, a few supplies, his father’s old Swiss Army knife. He could no longer breathe in the house that had once been a home. The walls pressed in on him with memories, and anxiety wrapped itself around his throat. He retreated into the woods, chasing freedom—or oblivion.

Days blurred into weeks, weeks into months. The forest did not soothe him. Its silence became a mirror of his isolation. Even the wind in the trees could not reach him anymore. Depression consumed him whole. One night, sitting by his campfire, he whispered into the flames:

“I shall join you, Father.
I shall join you, Mother.”

His voice cracked in the empty woods.

There was a bridge to the north, spanning a ravaging waterfall. That night he rose with a strange calmness, as though fate had already taken his hand. His boots crunched softly on the damp earth as he walked, checking the shadows out of habit. There was no one.

The roar of the waterfall grew louder, a monstrous heartbeat calling him forward. He reached the edge and looked down. The water smashed itself into jagged rocks below, mist rising like cold ghosts. His backpack slid from his shoulders to the ground, and he stepped closer.

His heart pounded like a drum of war. Sweat clung to him like a second skin. Every nerve screamed, yet he felt numb.

This is the end, thought Sheldon.

                                                   THE END