I Wish Tonight

It had been days since they'd had a decent conversation, or indeed a conversation at all. It depressed him. He was so used to having her around to clear his mind, distract him. Distract him in a good way that meant making him happy, a reminder of what it felt like to have happiness in his life and not a worry in the world. Without her, he would revert back to his original state before she came along - wary, lonely - with a great urge for self inflicting harm.

But she had hidden that knife, and he could not betray her wishes. He could easily get up and search for it, but he wouldn't. And so he slumped onto the mattress, eyes scanning the rubbish on the floor. Mostly notes he had written up and thrown away, neglecting his plan to keep it secret more and more. He reached for the nearest one and unravelled it, quite surprised to find it blank. Of all the pieces littering the floor, the majority of them had been written on, covered in his messy scrawls for help. Quickly trashing this thought aside, he grabbed the permanent marker from inside his pillow case, but stopped himself, wondering what to write. His eyes turned to the window. As usual, despite the little girl's complaints, the curtains were drawn shut, leaving him in complete darkness. He was so used to the dark now, his eyes adjusted to it almost naturally. He slowly got to his feet, and peeked out the window.

It was dark here too. Nighttime, he realised. He couldn't tell you the hour, because there was no clock. He stared out onto the overgrown lawn. It creeped him out a little, and the trees seemed to shiver angrily in the wind. Instead he turned his eyes to the moon. So bright and beautiful it looked... he returned to the mattress, throwing pen to paper as he wrote...

Star light,
star bright,
first star I see tonight.
I wish I may,
I wish I might,
Have this wish I wish tonight.

He barely paused to consider where and when this common used phrase had come to him, as he began to write out his wish beneath:

I wish to di -

He stopped himself. Why did that sound so false? He really did wish that, he wished it every day. So why couldn't he write it?

"Uncle T?" came the all too familiar voice.

He hurriedly raced to change his words.

I wish to live through the day when this all comes to an end.

[431 words]