Kroak

“No authors credit–intentional, books are freedom of expression, the public opinions
upon ideological standards. Not as a boast to whom is the better writer”
Day 1: Coffee

The marsh breathes of fog. It never stops. Not any ethereal mist, but a thick–clogging–and
distasteful shroud that engulfed the horizon whole, centralizing in this lone, decaying house.
For over thirty years it had been my world, this stagnant pocket of gray, with a tint of muted
greens. An external reminder that seemed permanently lodged in front of my eyes. I rarely
thought about the marsh–not truly.

It simply was, I rarely noticed it anymore. I remember the way I used to see the dust motes
dancing in what little light penetrated the grime-streaked windows.

My morning was less ritual than resignation - not an act of living, but rather insincere
indifferences performed. I moved from the cramped, excessively dim bedroom to the equally
cramped bathroom. The only distinguishing feature in this house was its lack of distinction, a
deliberate void I'd cultivated. Yet even here, quiet judgment resided: the bathroom mirror. Not
just glass, but a fractured canvas. Fine slits and cracks spiderwebbed from each corner,
reaching inward like tendrils of cold smoke. They seemed to push out from the surface in subtle
ridges , fault lines mapping my internal brokenness. I didn't curse them or consciously
acknowledge them most days, but they remained - a silent witness to my fragmented existence.

Today, I simply stared. Not at my own hollow eyes, but through them, focusing on the faint,
shimmering distortions the cracks created.

"Another day," I murmured,

the words emerging alien and parched from my throat.
"Another demoralizing dawn…"

The routine exacted its tribute.

The half-depleted bottle on the counter, I dispensed three small, white tablets. They struck the
ceramic sink with the sound of tiny, sharp taps before I gathered them into my palm.
A swift swallow of cold tap water followed, the pills dissolving to coat my tongue with their bitter
residue—and then the familiar narcotic stillness began its descent. Not happiness, nor even
peace. Simply the blunting of overactive sensation, a chemical haze layered over the mental
one.

I wandered through the remaining hours, a specter haunting my own dwelling. I rarely sat,
instead standing, pacing, pausing occasionally to catch a glimpse through the Mucky windows.

"Futile," I would sometimes think—the notion worn smooth by repetition, a nearness of mental
state that encompassed everything and nothing.

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And then, I saw it. Perched on the decaying lamppost just beyond the immediate perimeter of
my yard, a crow. A solid, black silhouette against the swirling gray, it seemed as predictable as
the fog itself. It had always been there, or so it seemed, even before I’d trapped myself by my
own will in this house three decades ago. The crow was my only real constant, a silent fixture, a
living buoy in my desolate repetition. I never spoke to it, never quite acknowledged it beyond
passive observation. It was simply... there. A phantom link to a world I otherwise shunned. Its
presence was the very proof of nothing changing, a quiet, almost mocking constant.

"Still here," I sometimes thought, gazing at the crow, though the idea was more so aimed at the
stagnant marsh than at the bird itself.

And I simply was. Doing nothing. Wanting nothing. Expecting nothing. My existence was less a
life lived and more a slow, protracted erosion, day by unchanging day.

Day 2: Black Tea

The marsh still breathed fog. I knew it did. The morning dragged me forward, as if forcing me to
exist once more. Pulling me from the cramped dimness of the bedroom toward the bathroom,
the mirror waited. Of course, its familiar network of cracks, slits, and extrusions was already laid
out. I opened the cabinet, tapped out the same three white cylinders into the dry hollow of my
palm, then swallowed them with cold water, feeling the usual chemical blanket begin its descent.
All as it always was.

From the window, I glanced at the decaying lamppost. The space where the familiar black
silhouette should have been was empty. I didn’t register it—not truly. It was just... not there. A
temporary absence. Something was off: a low hum beneath the narcotic stillness. I paced, but
eventually the thought, like all others, was dismissed.

The hum persisted. It wasn't anxiety, not yet... maybe... More like a wrong tune in a familiar
instrument, playing endlessly in the background of my mind. My usual passive observation of
nothing felt impossible. The narcotic effect wore thin—only just. Obscure thoughts began to rise.
Indistinct, unformed, and agitated.

Afternoon bled into late day, yet time felt stationary–static, even. The blanched, lifeless marsh
mirrored the murk inside me. The insistent drifts gnawed. I found myself impelled towards the
window again, not just glancing, but virtually pressing my face to the cold, rough, and obscured
glass pane, peering out with an unfamiliar intensity. My breath fogged the glass, then cleared,
revealing only the endless, empty marsh. No crow.

No crow…

A strange, unfamiliar compulsion seized me. Instinctively my feet carried me to the back door,
and I darted out onto the small, neglected patio. The cool, damp air immediately hit me. Rain

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still fell—fine, persistent—a soft, drumming presence tapping against the decrepit awning. I felt
the water softly misting my skin, dampening my sparse hair. I didn't step further.

I stood there for perhaps an hour, a statuesque figure, immobile and exposed. My eyes scouted
through and beyond the mist-shrouded landscape, moving from the empty lamppost to the
distant, skeletal tree trunks, searching for the familiar buoy.
The crow was gone. Not just for a moment, not just for the morning. Gone. My last–if not only,
consistent and passive connection to the world, severed. The silent companion of thirty years,
no longer there.

I gradually veered back inside, the bleak accents of the patio still clinging to my clothes.Inside,
the air felt heavier than before. The crow’s absence was more than I liked to admit—a fresh void
where my last anchor had once sat, now silent.

And then it hit me.

The full, unvarnished weight of it.
This was the day.
The day I ought to hate, not love.

The knowledge settled over me, heavy and suffocating–more real than any physical pain. Every
choice, every surrender, every wasted moment coalesced into a monumental self-loathing.

I stumbled erratically into the bathroom, the familiar mirror now looming. Scrutinizing–pleading
for any answer to no avail. Tears began to flow, and the cracks, already veining across the
surface, seemed to twist and deepen. They pulsed by the intensity of my despair, each fault line
a searing proof to my fragility, to the monumental force of my self-hatred. The face reflected
back was not just hollow; it was the face of the abyss.

I gasped—unable to breathe, yet held the mirror’s gaze.

"Finally." The word escaped as a broken whisper.

There was only one solution left.

My hand trembled as I reached for the half-depleted bottle of pills—the familiar white tablets. I
rushed. Movements messy, I knocked the bottle to the counter.
Thoughts—fragmented. This time, I didn’t tap out three. I poured them all into my palm. A pile.
two, four, six, eight—
There was no hesitation. Only my plea. aching desire for ignorance.
I swallowed them. A bitter cascade, with no water.
The final act.

But even this–I failed, again.

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I slid to the floor, my back pressed to the wall, hyperventilating. Then I collapsed fully, cheek
against the hard wooden plank flooring. My vision split–
I couldn’t keep focus.
My eyes blurring through the tears that finally came, hot and stinging, for myself… and the
escape I will never achieve.

And there, on the floor, I tried to cry myself to sleep.

Pathetic.

Day 3: Yerba Mate

Oblivion. A word that tasted like ash–with the gritted texture of sand. My eyes cracked open, not
to darkness, but to a searing, white-hot ache behind my skull. I sensed queasiness, a bitter
chemical residue still clinging to the back of my throat. My mouth was unbearably dry, like
sandpaper—and every inch of my body ached as though it had been crushed under immense
weight. My vision blurred, trying to piece together the cold, rough wooden planks beneath me.

Slowly, unwillingly, I understood: I’m alive.

The realization destroyed me. My meaningless survival landed with a crushing humiliation, not
relief. A worthless desperate act.
I had failed.

"Pathetic." It hurts–sharper now.

Grinding inside my skull as I lay on the planks, too weak to cry–to move–to live. The night
before seperated me, it tore me apart. Under the harsh, unforgiving light of morning, made
worse by the undeniable fact that I was still conscious, still suffering.

As the minutes ground past, my body remained immobile, hostile. Moving ever so
slightly—rolling onto my side, lifting an arm—felt almost impossible. My limbs were leaden, my
muscles foreign and unresponsive. I tried to force myself up, my hands fumbled on the rough
wood, feeling the texture of dried blood and splintered grain. My–blood.

I Collapsed, again.

My house, still quiet and still, even through my agony and insufferable pain. My abandoned
cocoon, familiar details that turned against me. My body was no longer a suite but a prison,
locking me inside unbearable pain.

Eventually my thirst for normality had begun to overtake my wining. It scratched at my throat, a
dry, rasping fire, impossible to ignore. Dragging myself throughout the cabin, perhaps with a
limp or stumble, I made it through the trail out of the bathroom and toward the kitchen. My knees

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grated against the splintered planks with every fall. Each moment was disjointed and painful; the
journey. Slow–grueling, and interrupted by temporary hallucinations.

After what seemed like an eternity of effort, I reached the kitchen. The act of drinking anything
was mechanically broken, not redemptive. Whether it tasted sour, sterile, or like salvation, it
didn’t matter—the stains were my fault. I drank because my body demanded it, not because I
wished to exist alive longer. There was nothing joyous in the act, only a bare necessity.

It did not mark recovery, but rather endurance.

Later in the afternoon, a few hours or so after my painful awakening, I couldn’t tell–my clock lost
battery years ago. I dragged myself toward the window. Unlike the previous day’s approach, this
time I moved without urgency. It was a bit more of a habit than an instinct, performed with the
dulled reflexes of a nothing too exhausted to care. I peered outside, weakly, to find the lamppost
still bare. The crow was gone. The pole still deserted. The sight doesn’t stir fresh negativity—but
it simply confirms what I already know: the emotional void remains, but only now it feels
permanent.

When nightfall descended, a subtle shift enhanced. I was not just miserable anymore—no, I was
irritated by my own weakness, frustrated by my sheer repetition of failure. It wasn’t energy I felt,
but a minor flicker of resistance to what I had become. Then, silence.

-was broken by a sound—a rustle from outside, near the garbage. I stirred, unsettled, and
moved to check.

In the half-light, I saw it: a raccoon, horribly injured. One eye protruded, and its fur was streaked
with open wounds. The two of us locked eyes for a moment. It didn’t beg or growl. It simply took
what little sustenance it can—expired, vile leftovers—and skittered away into the dark. I
watched silently. It was just a creature surviving, damaged–crushed beyond belief, but still doing
what it must to keep moving.

Something in me reflected back. The raccoon didn’t want to be seen. It wanted to retreat. But it
was still alive. And so was I.
I scoffed, though my vocal cords still trembled. "I doubt that little sucker is of any importance," I
couldn’t speak well, my tone slightly startled.

It was nothing, just a raccoon.

Just a raccoon…

Another broken thing. The thought didn't linger. I dragged myself from the window, the dull ache
in my head a constant companion. My bedroom offered little solace, a rusted bed frame barely
clutching an old, worn, bed bug-ridden mattress. I collapsed onto it, the springs shot in protest, I
could sense the small scurrying of the little critters already, has it really gotten that late tonight?

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I don’t know,
Darkness swallowed me.

Day 4: Sourdough

When dawn broke, I rose. Surprisingly–not with the searing headache, nor a churning stomach
and the aching body. Instead, I felt… nothing, as I usually did beforehand.

The lamppost was still bare.

The crow, still absent.

But it wasn't the crow that clawed at my thoughts this morning.

The vivid remembrance of that mangled creature, its exposed eye, its desperate scramble for
foul scraps, slammed into me with a force I hadn’t allowed myself to feel last night. It's fear. Its
urgent flight. It didn't defend itself; it simply retreated, carrying its pain into the dark. And in that
raw, visceral flash, I saw it–I just didn’t realize it at the time.
My own perpetual cowering. My own desperate retreat from anything that might sting. My own
fear. Not of failure, not of the world, but of confronting my nagging, hiding that within me. It could
be the cause of my self disappointment.

The raccoon reminded me of that empty thing I glimpse at occasionally in the mirror, when I try
to look at myself. Not maybe perhaps not such worthlessness but rather pure, unadulterated
cowardice. I always ran–from pain–from truth—from experiences, and from myself.

My feet, light and steady, carried me to the bathroom. My breath hitched.

The mirror.

The cracks, still there, a web of fracture. But a jagged fault line that had torn from the upper right
corner, running deep into the glass, seemed to… melt inwards.
Slowly, confusingly, like ice under a warm hand. The glass where it had been became smooth.
Flawless. Just... clear glass.

I stared, starting to chuckle.

A sigh, a mocking voice deeply ingrained, sufficed.

"...This is too cliche, people have already done this before. C'mon writer..."

But the glass was clear. It didn’t respond, I knew it wouldn’t. I reluctantly rolled my eyes to the
thought;

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Later, I moved through the old shack with an oddly aimless energy. My irritation from last night
hadn't resolved; on the contrary it had sharpened, coiling into a fragile, unfamiliar
understanding. My eyes landed on an old, dusty picture frame propped against the wall in the
corner of what I loosely called my living room/kitchen. It was an artifact from when I moved in,
thirty years ago, long before the dust became permanent. When there were still days with the
crow.

I reached out, my fingers clearing away the grime and the light layer of debris, it felt like a soft
blanket.

The picture frame held an image of a single, worn, destroyed, and ripped shoe. On that shoe, its
laces were tied perfectly. Interestingly of order–even on a crappy, shitty shoe.
The laces were meticulously and harmonically arranged. As if it was a perfect orchestra playing
on broken instruments.

It sparked a thought, an idea.

Maybe if a situation is undeniably terrible, those who choose can still strive to be the best
version of oneself.

A weird connection in all honesty,

That afternoon, I found the same half-depleted bottle of pills. My daily ritual. Three white
cylinders. My hands, which had trembled in a time that felt O’ so recent, were steady.
This time, I didn't tap out three. I tapped out two.

An act
A choice.
Something I never thought I had earned;

The thought of numbing myself, of escaping, was still there, a whisper in the back of my mind.
But now, it was accompanied by a new, quiet change.

The change felt insignificant, almost imperceptible, but it was there. A conscious decision, i’m
not to cower. Not anymore.

Day 5: Baguette:

I woke as if the world was softening around the edges. The marsh remained shrouded, the
lamppost bare, but their changed presence no longer pressed down with such an insistent
weight.​
Today, lighter
Not weightless, but simply less burdened. A sigh of content dissatisfaction as I exhaled–broken,
but stable.

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My hand had found the bottle of pills,
“already…?”
The habit so deeply ingrained it was involuntary. Disturbingly, the decision today felt different.
From three, then two, now none but a single white cylinder dropped into my palm. It was a
contrasting, unfamiliar option. That cylinder had long governed my life, and now–the time to
change.
The ancient hum of escape was fainter now, a distant reverberation from a past I felt I wasn’t
choosing to dismantle. I swallowed the lone pill, nothing but the faint, metallic taste, a last
lingering–a farewell to my old means of survival.

As the morning clicked past, some sensation began to prick at me, gentle as the breeze. It
wasn't a sudden, blinding thought, but a quiet opening of perception. I found myself noticing the
way the thin light filtered through the dusty panes, painting faint spots across the torn
floorboards. I heard the distant, almost musical shower of water somewhere around the marsh
outside, a sound that previously I thought of as a consistent ridicule.

In these diminished, forgotten–but nonetheless important details, a shutter of a feeling warmer,

began to surface. Not fully active, but an unconventional possibility of it.
A tentative feeling, almost like a memory, that I can smile at simple ideals

Later, when I approached the bathroom mirror,

the familiar knot of dread–gone…?
The massed complex of cracks was still there, but intriguingly, the jagged fault lines that had
pushed back yesterday, now have seemed to recede further.
As if thinning like a woodpecker on a rotting birch.
More of the glass had softened, fading back to a smooth, flawless clarity. It was happening.
Slowly, incomprehensibly,

Each receding fracture was a visual ornament in my internal healing, a muted retort of the
engraved self-loathing that had shattered my reflection–so long ago.

The mirror reflected a subtle realism,

“Maybe some things aren’t about those grand gestures or dramatic transformations.”
I paused, the silence–deafening.

I silently straddled over towards the patio, more so in a drowsy–unfiltered tone. I pressed
against the crooked and decayed fence, my chest intruded slightly by the railing. I stared, I
wasn’t sure as to what, at least not for a while…

Day 6: Water

The morning today felt different. Not with any sudden action or smile, but with a minor shift in
the air, a miniscule easing of constant pressure. The marsh remained shrouded, the lamppost

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bare, their presence still there, that never changes–but no longer pressing down with such an
insistent weight.
I never noticed the weight until I had it off my shoulders…
I woke up lighter. Not weightless, maybe never weightless, not truly free, but certainly less
strained than before.

A grunt of disheartening boredom escaped me as I exhaled

My hand reached for the bottle, a subconscious motion played over so many times I don’t
remember the start. But today, the weight of the plastic felt inert, as if not any urgent need.
There was no lingering repetition of,
"I need this, to survive."
No insidious voice trying to justify the old habit.
This time, I tapped out none. Not two, not one. Zero. The pills, the architects of my narcotically
induced acceptance, lay statuesque in the bottle as I placed them delicately inside the ricketing
cabinet.
It was an unexpected minor relief,
The air in my lungs tasted cleaner, the silence in my ears deeper. I had found a new way to
cope, a strength forged not from manufactured feelings, but from within myself.

Later that day, I stepped before the mirror–just trying to understand it all.
Half-expecting the usual familiar flaws. What I saw made my breath catch in my throat, a silently
alert shock. The intricate splits and cracks, the jagged lines that had seemed so permanent, the
faint blemishes that had stubbornly lingered even yesterday – they were all gone. The glass was
perfectly smooth, it was still fogged along the edges, a layer of dust coating the reflective panel.
whole and undisturbed, no longer fractured into pieces of my personality.
It wasn't just a mirror reflecting the room anymore.

The rest of the day, muted. I wasn't suddenly radiating joy–the world outside remained the
same: the silent lamppost, the completely engulfed marsh, the damp cold seeping into the
shack. But internally I felt shifted. I could observe the new feelings, it felt like I could
acknowledge its presence without judgment, and then, slowly, let it pass.

I wasn't a "positivity" person, and perhaps I never will be. The world is still a complex, annoying,
and tediously difficult place. But I always have room to try–that had felt utterly impossible just a
short time ago.

As the hushed light outside began to fade into the distance, I discerned a sense of rust in the
back of my throat. I walked to the kitchen, I don’t enter it much anymore since the cockroaches
mostly live there. I stopped once I approached the rust-stained sink. The faucet was slightly
crusted with age, the porcelain chipped and scarred. I turned the knob, hearing the friction of
ancient and clashing pipes, and watched as water sputtered out in short bursts, slightly murky
and discolored, but it was drinkable.

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It wasn't the crystal-clear water I'd hoped for. I never had the time to fix it; the cold, hard proof
that some things remained stubbornly, physically, unchanged. Yet, seeing it, a faint smile spread
across my cheeks. The water was dirty, yes, but it still runs. That is all that matters.

Day 7: Perched

I lay, the springs pushing against me—the taint in the light that came through the windows was a
soft shade of navy blue. The clock says midnight. I felt distant, cold. I hadn't truly slept
yesterday, now it’s around 1 AM.
The urge wasn't a desperate longing for warmth, for comfort. But a quiet, almost forced desire to
sit with myself, maybe a mental reflection on how I had been feeling, to trace the subtle change
that had moved through me through what felt so long yet so short.

The cold seeped into my bones as I picked myself up, I moved outside, movements sluggish,
and sat on the decrepit patio, the chipped wood a familiar sensation. The sky was a blanket of
inky black, dotted with a sparse scattering of clouded stars that seemed too dim to help comfort.

The silence of the marsh amplified the hum of my own thoughts, not a hushing void as it once
was, but a vast, open space in which my mind could finally stretch. The stable, yet harsh,
environment around me perfectly: nothing had physically changed in this isolated corner of the
world. The long, skeletal grass that rises out of the water remained crescent by dampness, the
air still bit at my exposed skin, and the distant lamppost stood sentinel.

Everything felt oddly devoid of its former chaotic elements, its suffocating confusion and
reaction. I recall the raspy cawing, they once seemed as a speaker for an otherwise tranquil
night.
​
It’s gone.

This newfound motionlessness,

The realization settled over me, slow and steady like the encroaching dawn. Knowing that my
external situation was still shitty, still isolated, perhaps even more so now that I truly saw it
without the veil of overactive narcissism – that very knowing released a small, unexpected
solace.

I felt there was no anger, nor aggression—no overwhelming rage against the injustice of the
truth.
Just a quiet acceptance.
It raised a smile, a little bit of joy, a quiet match lit inside a gasoline tank, a substantial truth that
now resided within me, firm as though it were the earth beneath my feet.

This place, for this life, and was what it was.

And for the first time, that was enough.

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