The land was barren, the sky was black, yet Ayla skipped ahead, bending over to pick up a rock here, stopping to point at a black cumulonimbus there; all the while humming a song that he didn't remember singing to her at bedtime. Was it a song her mother had taught her? She brushed her brown curls away from her face every few minutes, and did so the way she would wipe water off her face, with flat hands, unlike her sister who had taken to rearranging the stray strands with her fingertips and always tucked them neatly behind her ears.

He felt a heavy drop land on the top of his head and roll towards his neck. Another one splashed on his shoulder and seeped through the fabric. The clouds were menacing, but they also glided by so fast that the sun would shine again before they could make it back to the car. He looked left and right for a nook or tree to use as cover, then was seized by panic: he squeezed his eyes to try and make out the shape of his car in the distance, turning on himself several times. Deep breaths, he thought. We didn't walk that far, I'm sure we came from...

"Uncle Ben!" Ayla called out. He spun again to see the little girl crouching, hands on her knees. Drops fell harder, the wet circles scattered on the back of her t-shirt growing closer together.

"Don't touch anything!" he said in alarm. With the car nowhere to be seen, the storm coming and the knowledge that they had driven an hour without seeing a living soul before even parking the car, he suddenly reeled with worry that the four year old might get bitten by a scorpion or a snake and he wouldn't be able to get help in time. He strode to close the distance between Ayla and himself, and saw that she was perched over a little hole in the ground.

"I saw a little head," she whispered, her eyes shining.

"Might be a desert squirrel," he said. He crouched next to her and they peered into the hole. The rain drummed on them now, and Ben stole glances at Ayla's flattening curls, at her focused gaze. He wanted to put his arms around her, hold her tight, but knew she would push him away, as she had before. He had to let her come to him, or not, as she wished.

"Is he dead?" she asked without looking up.

"The squirrel? Probably not. I bet he’s hiding because he's scared by big creatures like us. They make their homes in the ground you know?"

"Is mom hiding too? Did she make a new home in the ground?"

The tightening in his chest and throat stopped him from answering immediately. Ayla looked up at him, but he couldn't tell what her cheeks were wet from.

"No," he replied shaking his head. "Your mom wouldn't hide from you."

Marc grabbed his pack of cigarettes and his jacket and hurried out of the building. The winter air hit him full in the face but he didn’t feel it. His body was still boiling from the stuffy air of the office. In the time he it had taken to light up the cigarette, he had reached the corner of the window-paned building. He was outside, free as a bird, but looked like a caged lion, pacing back and forth. On the other side of the window-panes, bodies were running, cycling, sweating, and putting on a show as if they were in an aquarium. But he tried to keep his back to this new gym, ignoring all these caged hamsters. He knew fine well that one or two of them were judging him just then. He wasn’t bothered by the fat ones; after all, they were in that glass bubble to fight their own vices. But he couldn’t stand the thin or muscled shapes. He imagined each one of them looking at him with disdain, mocking his bad habit. They were as much hamsters as he was a lion... all caged, all held hostage by a life and a world that didn’t think they were good enough or strong enough.

They could all go fuck themselves.

Secretly, he was raging. His angry stubbing-out of his cigarette on top of the bin betrayed a temporary lack of self-control. After a last breath of fresh air, he walked back to the office, a puppet without a smile, a robot programmed only to accomplish the tasks he was asked to do.

“Did you remember to buy the lottery ticket for this week?” she asked when he had just barely crossed the threshold to his own home.

“Yes.”

He went to the kitchen where she was to drop off the tickets before heading to the bedroom to take off his coat and shoes.

“We should put another coat of paint in the hall. I noticed that it’s starting to look dirty.” she shouted from the kitchen. By “we” she meant “you” of course.

“Yes.” he replied, doing his best not to let his voice betray his irritation.

After taking off his shoes, he remained sitting on the bed. He had no energy and didn’t want to move.

“Dinner’s ready.”

“I’m coming.”

The water running in the sink, burning hot, numbed him. Doing the dishes each night provided him with a certain sense of satisfaction. The repetitiveness of it, the cleanliness of each object, the loneliness. It was the perfect moment of calm, a yoga session in the kitchen: his body loosened and finally let go of the stress accumulated during the day. But in his head, thoughts ran wild, a motorway during rush hour. Past mistakes, regrets, disgust with himself, regrets, disappointment, regrets... if he could do it all over again... regrets. Nobody gets a second chance. The worst mistake he’d ever made was not to have seized happiness when it presented itself. By wanting to do well, he had forgotten himself. He knew that many people in this world were selfish and he considered himself to be relatively so too. But when the critical moment had arrived, he had put himself last. That was his death sentence. He had taken himself to death row, toward the fatal injection: a lie. Death had slowly slipped through his veins while he realized, stunned, the strength of this poison, and only left a carcass empty of any will, keeping only as a keepsake the memories buried under a layer of regrets.

Once again, he couldn’t sleep. The stranger by his side in the big bed breathed peacefully. He knew she must be suffering because of what he had become but she was still putting on a brave face, refusing to admit anything. Maybe she was punishing him. Maybe it was only her self-defense mechanism reacting. If he had been able to feel anything, he would have felt guilty. He looked at her for a few minutes before he got up, put on a pair of jogging bottoms, t-shirt and a hoodie, grabbed the new pack of fags that he had bought at the same time as the lottery ticket and headed out.

The air now felt completely frozen, completely different from the earlier stinging freshness. Before even lighting his cigarette, he was already exhaling big puffy clouds. They quickly vanished, dissipating instead of swirling into nothingness. His hands were stiffening from the cold and he struggled with the lighter to ignite it. He didn’t know why he smoked, only that his body seemed to need it. It was a habit taken up to face adversity when nothing else seemed to work. The night seemed dark beyond the light pollution of the streets. Despite the cold, he decided to go for a walk. He might as well avoid when he could, the attitude of the caged lion brought about by the shortness of the break he had at work. Right now, he didn’t have a limit of time to adjust to or a boss observing his comings and goings and taking note of how long he took to go for a piss. He followed the street to its end then headed for the cycle path. The place was most likely going to be deserted, potentially dangerous if some delinquents or other disturbed beings were hanging around the area, but he didn’t give a shit. They might as well stab him in the backside for all he cared, what difference would it make?

He had just crossed the bridge that led to the path when he saw a furtive silhouette disappearing round a corner in the distance. She had long dark hair, was seemingly the same size as her and the same aspect. Natalie? His heart bolted out of his chest and his legs became weak. Without thinking, he started running after the silhouette and saw her again when he reached the corner. She was walking away hurriedly. As he was nearing on her, she started to run. He pushed himself and caught up with her, his lungs and throat burning from the cold. He grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn around and she screamed, clearly frightened. After a second of hesitation, he let go of her arm and she ran away, hysteric. Why did he keep finding this glimmer of hope? Disappointment inevitably followed. Raging, he went back towards the cycle path and lit up a second cigarette. He was now walking as fast as he could, as if trying to escape the mistake he had just made. The shape of the naked trees in the gloomy darkness recreated the atmosphere of a dark novel, the perfect environment for he felt like a specter, floating without any bonds to earthly matters. His mind was spiraling out of control; he wanted to run but puffed on his fag instead. The panic wasn’t subsiding, quite the opposite, it grew stronger with each step, each puff. The regrets came back to the surface with a vengeance. In his mind, he relived the minutes that, if he had acted differently, would have drastically changed his life. A different life unrolled before of his eyes, filled with smiles, happy faces and laughs. The idyll wasn’t very believable but that was all he had left. Just like a film, he could watch some scenes and play them over and over again. They drove him crazy. Third fag. He had reached the train tracks that marked the end of the cycle path. The city was close; he could hear its humming in the distance. His thoughts slowly drowned under the urban noises. Fourth fag. His mouth was pasty but he still puffed on the nicotine with satisfaction. Fifth and sixth followed. The lights of the cars passing by hypnotized him. The voices in his head were gone, the calm, finally back after the storm. His automaton-like state had been reactivated. He slowly walked back to the apartment. In a few hours, the sun would come up, and he would go back to the routine, to a life devoid of any emotions. The one that he probably deserved after all.