He used to believe life was something you could get used to.
Not happiness. Not fulfillment. Just endurance. The quiet kind. You wake up, you do what needs to be done, you come back tired, and eventually the days blur enough that you stop asking questions. That had been the plan.
It hadn't worked.
The apartment was small, clean in a mechanical way. Not tidy because it was loved, but because disorder made thinking worse. The couch was too big for the living room. A mistake made years ago, back when we was still a word that meant something. There was a framed photo on a shelf, turned face down. He hadn't thrown it away. He also hadn't looked at it in months.
Divorce was strange like that.
It didn't explode. It eroded.
Paperwork, conversations that went nowhere, silence that felt heavier than arguments. In the end, there had been no screaming. Just exhaustion and a mutual understanding that continuing would take more effort than stopping.
He still thought of her sometimes. Mostly when nothing else demanded his attention.
Work helped with that.
Every weekday, he sat in front of a screen under white lights that never flickered, answering emails that could have been written by anyone to people who rarely read them. The job wasn't difficult. That was the worst part. There was no challenge to drown in, no failure dramatic enough to justify the fatigue. Just repetition. Just time being exchanged for money, one day at a time.
His coworkers liked him well enough. He listened. He smiled at the right moments. He remembered birthdays. If he vanished, they would be surprised. Then they would adjust.
That thought had followed him home more than once.
Tonight, the apartment felt quieter than usual.
Moonlight poured through the window, pale and almost soft, stretching across the floor. It caught on something near the bed—a small, circular glint that didn't belong. He frowned and leaned closer.
A coin.
It looked old, but not dirty. The metal was smooth, edges worn down, as if it had passed through too many hands to care anymore. What stood out was the faint sheen on its surface. Not a strong shine. Just enough to reflect the moonlight in a way that felt… deliberate.
He didn't remember dropping it. He didn't remember owning it.
He picked it up.
The coin was warm. That alone should have unsettled him more than it did. Instead, he turned it over between his fingers, curious in the same detached way he felt about most things lately. There was no symbol he recognized, no date, no inscription. And yet, it felt important in a way he couldn't articulate.
Like a word on the tip of his tongue.
He slipped the coin into his pocket and sat on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees. The silence pressed in gently, without urgency. Somewhere far below, a car horn blared. Someone laughed. Life, continuing as usual.
For weeks now, he had felt tired in a way sleep couldn't fix.
Not sad. Not exactly. Just worn thin. As if something essential had been slowly scraped away, layer by layer, until all that remained was the habit of continuing. He still went to work. Still paid his bills. Still answered messages with polite efficiency.
But the question had started to surface more often.
Why?
It wasn't dramatic. It didn't come with tears or panic. It arrived quietly, during mundane moments—while brushing his teeth, while reheating leftovers, while staring at the ceiling before sleep. A simple observation, really.
Nothing is waiting for you.
Tonight, under the full moon, the thought didn't feel cruel.
It felt honest.
He stood up and walked toward the balcony, sliding the door open. Cool air rushed in, carrying the noise of the city upward. From this height, everything looked smaller. Manageable. The lights below resembled scattered stars trapped on the ground.
He rested his hands on the railing.
For a moment, something flickered inside him. Not fear. Not regret. Just a brief, irritating hesitation. As if part of him found the whole thing inconvenient.
He glanced back at the apartment. The couch. The turned-over photo. The coin on the nightstand, faintly gleaming in the moonlight.
It won't matter, he thought.
That realization brought an unexpected sense of relief.
He climbed onto the railing, movements steady, unhurried. There was no final message, no dramatic pause. No belief that this meant something more than what it was.
Life hadn't been unbearable.
It had just been empty long enough to become heavy.
Maybe that was all life was.
The sound was lost to the city and the coin lay on the street below, still faintly shining under the moonlight, reflecting it with quiet indifference.