Will took a deep drag on his cigarette, squinting against the wisp of smoke that curled up into his eyes. He blew the lungful out over the city that stretched below him in a million points of glowing sodium and neon. There was no kick left in tobacco he decided, grinding the glowing nub into a misshapen remnant on the rock beside him.
Normally, he liked to come up here to the bluff to think. Years before -- how many? -- he had discovered this spot where the weather had worn the soft rock into a seat that looked out over the urban sprawl several hundred feet below. Protected by an overhang from the path above, the seat was his secret place. At least, in all the years he'd been coming here, he'd never found anyone else sitting in it, or any evidence that it had been occupied since his previous visit.
From this distance the clamour of the city was muted --a little, at least -- adding some clarity to his thinking. Or reducing the distraction of everyday life anyway. He came up here when he needed to search for answers, but tonight all he was finding were more questions. His mind kept reminding him how the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything had led the characters from one of his favourite novels to spend millennia in a further search for the real question. A quest for a question. It sounded mad. And of course, in the novel, that had been exactly the point.
But Will didn't need more questions. He needed answers. Specifically, he needed answers to questions like 'Are you sleeping with someone?' and 'Do you still love me?' At least, part of him did. Another part -- and which part was in the majority varied by the minute -- was scared to hear the answers. Didn't want resolution or clarity. Wasn't prepared for the possible -- probable? -- pain that answers might bring.
Below him, somewhere in the city hidden from view at this distance, an ambulance siren echoed around the wide streets. Someone, somewhere, would soon be asking the question 'Is he, or she, going to be OK doctor?' or perhaps, if the siren didn't quite perform well enough in the crowded streets and the ambulance was delayed for crucial seconds, they would be hearing the question 'Would you like some time alone?'
Will didn't want to be alone. That was a question he never needed to answer. It was built into him like his height, the colour of his eyes, his smoking habit. He didn't do alone. Never had. The prospect gave him the shivers, right through his gut, like he had a permanent attack of the shits. Up here, in the relative quiet, with every glimmer of starlight blotted out by heavy clouds, surrounded by darkness only relieved by the carpet of city lights under his feet, he could see that more clearly. Could see also that his fear of loneliness had driven him to stay where he was no longer wanted, or needed. Loneliness is a crowded room, said the old song. And with the new clarity that his secret seat granted him, Will could see that it was also a crowded house, or a crowded life. There was nothing lonelier than being surrounded by people you didn't know, didn't like, didn't want to be with. Endless hours and days spent in pointless, circular conversations about nothing important. Everyone trying to hide the fact that they'd rather be somewhere else, with someone else.
The craving for another cigarette surfaced in his chest. He reached unconsciously for the pack and then paused. What was the real answer to the question 'Do you want a light?' Only minutes before he had stubbed out his last smoke. He hadn't enjoyed it. Why didn't he make it, literally, his last smoke? There was another question. A question similar to the one about being alone that, with his new-found clarity, he discovered he already knew the answer to. The light he wanted to let into his life was not the light of a match. Not that of a lighter. He needed sunlight and warmth. He needed moonlight and romance. Not the hollow, cold, empty light that shone in the eyes of people who no longer cared about him. He threw the pack of cigarettes over the edge of the bluff and watched it bounce and spin down the rock face until it disappeared from view.
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