In a corner of a dark park, on a moss-covered stone bench overlooking the dim lights of the city, Kael sat silently. As the night fell upon him, the void within seemed to grow heavier. He was staring at the sky—there was no reflection of stars in his eyes. He wasn't really looking at the stars gliding across the sky, nor the night, nor the infinity itself; in truth, he wasn't looking at anything. His gaze was fixed on a single point, yet storms raged inside him. Deep, silent, devastating storms.
There was neither a smile nor meaning on his lips. The lines on his face were not carved by years, but by disappointments, fatigue, and exhaustion. This was a face that had long forgotten what hope meant. In his eyes, there was neither regret of the past nor expectation of the future. As if all moments in time were the same for him: meaningless and burdensome.
He thought, almost whispering to himself:
"Am I to blame for this, or is it fate?"
Even this thought stirred his anger. Yes, he was angry. But mostly, he was angry at his own helplessness. He didn't know who held the strings of this puppet-like life, but those strings were strangling him. They said "freedom"... Then what was this? Merely a modern, polished version of slavery?
Kael was like a personification of disappointment. Everything he ever expected from life had either arrived too late or never come at all. He had no more enthusiasm, no desire left. Time wasn't something that flowed for him—it was a curse that had to be endured. He didn't want anything anymore, because nothing belonged to him. His only possessions were a long-worn black coat faded by years, a white t-shirt, worn-out black trousers, an old phone in his pocket, and a half-empty pack of cigarettes.
As the collar of his coat fluttered slightly in the wind, Kael's face was partially revealed between the shadows. His skin was pale—as if the sun hadn't touched him for years. His messy dark brown hair, falling over his ears, was often pushed back by hand, like a repeated reflex of a man lost in thought. His eyes were pale gray; but when you looked into them, you saw not color, but emptiness. They were eyes that didn't dream—perhaps because they had seen too much and forgotten none of it.
He had a light stubble on his face, as if he had skipped shaving on purpose. A small, faint scar was visible on his left temple—it had a story, but even he no longer remembered it. His posture was straight, but unintentionally so. As if an invisible weight on his shoulders kept him upright while pinning him to the ground. He was 1.83 meters tall, neither large nor thin; medium build, slightly hunched from years behind a desk, yet still looked strong. On his left wrist, he wore an old, cracked-glass watch that no longer worked. He had no explanation for why he didn't take it off—perhaps he had long forgotten the meaning of measuring time.
The cold night wind gently stirred the hem of his coat. Kael slowly reached into his pocket. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. With trembling hands, he took one and placed it between his lips. Then he pulled out his lighter. He paused for a moment, then flicked it mechanically. No spark. He tried again. Then again. Once more. Still no spark.
Kael's expression didn't change, but his eyes filled with anger. This was one of those moments when it felt like everything was against him.
"Even a cigarette is too much for me in this life..."
he thought.
His trembling fingers kept flicking the lighter over and over. He no longer wanted to smoke; he just wanted something—anything—to go right. Just once. Even if it was something tiny and insignificant… But life was letting him down once again.
The "click click" of the lighter echoed through the silence of the night. Each sound snapped another link in the fragile chain of his patience. Sometimes, people don't break from great losses—but from moments like these, seemingly trivial. And Kael... was now very close to his breaking point.
The sound of the lighter echoed in the high ceiling of the park—"click, click, click..." Each repetition grew sharper in the night's silence, as if bouncing off the dark walls surrounding him. Kael, with trembling hands, gave the lighter one last desperate flick. Finally, a tiny spark flared. Then the lighter ignited softly; and that small, fragile moment of joy—something he hadn't felt in so long—spread through him.
Perhaps just for a few seconds, perhaps for the first time in his life, he felt a flicker of life with the warmth of that spark. He brought the cigarette to his lips and looked toward the sky. As the cigarette began to burn, he took a deep breath. The smoke that filled his lungs seemed to rise from the ashes of a lost memory.
But the world around him was moving in the opposite direction of that moment's weight.
A few elderly men strolling through the park whispered to each other while glancing at Kael. Their voices were sharp and full of reproach:
"Is this a place to smoke? At night, no less..."
they murmured. Kael's presence was an irritation to them. Perhaps it was a reflection of their own loneliness.
A little farther away, a group of young girls were whispering among themselves, unable to take their eyes off Kael. There was a mocking smile on their faces:
"He looks like some street thug, doesn't he?"
they said, their laughter shattering the night. That laughter pierced into Kael—like scornful, derisive voices rising from behind an invisible wall surrounding him.
Kael felt those voices and glances, yet didn't even look at them. Without taking his eyes off his cigarette, he tried to regain control over that fragile warmth inside him. Still, every word, every whisper stabbed into his brain like a sharp blade.
For 32 years, he had grown up with these voices. Since the day he was born, he had been crushed beneath constant criticism, mockery, and judgment. No one had ever supported him—not his family, not his friends, not even acquaintances. He was alone. He was nothing.
In the middle of this broken life, he was still trying to hold onto a spark. But that spark kept dying in the wind every time. The anger, weariness, and bitterness within him grew more and more each day.
In the park, under the weight of his solitude, as he took his first drag from the cigarette, this small piece of the surrounding world was telling him so much. And Kael... still couldn't do anything.
As Kael sat on the bench, his gaze once again fixed downward. He watched the cold ground being pressed under the footsteps of passersby. The moonlight gently illuminated the earth, but it couldn't extinguish the darkness burning inside him. In that silence, in that desolation, storms raged within Kael's mind. He was questioning his own existence, his own fate.
"Why me?" he asked himself, once again, as he had millions of times before.
Under that moonlight, it was as if he had been cut off from the world. In his own world, his own time, his own silence. What he saw were just cracks in the pavement, decayed leaves, the distant shadows of street lamps. But in his mind, the thoughts, memories, and questions exploding were far deeper.
His past, his memories, began falling into his mind one by one. From his earliest recollections, he remembered the breaking points, the pain, the loneliness, and the hopelessness... Each was like an arrow lodged deep in his soul.
This was the life of a ruin. Maybe even less than that. Those who saw his life would merely say "it must've been hard," but never truly understand. For them, Kael was just an invisible figure on the street, a shadow forgotten a step away. But for him, this life was a shattered ruin; every corner held pain, every stone concealed sorrow.
His childhood... Kael thought. How distant those days were.
The only sounds he had heard were the echoes of criticism, blame, and despair.
His youth was no different. Perhaps he had dreams; but he never found any soil to nourish them. He had to hide the rebellion inside him. Because his world was against him, and fate had condemned him.
"Maybe this life has no meaning," Kael thought. "Or maybe I never dared to understand it."
Each new day was heavier, darker than the last. The loneliness growing within him was slowly consuming him. Beyond being just a ruin, he was now getting lost even within himself.