Boulevard of Broken Dreams

I walk alone. I walk alone.

The ashy snow piles up on the sides of abandoned streets, half melted, half crusted over with ice. Ruins are fading around me, empty plots of land where houses once stood, where people once lived.  Soggy bits of paper are stuck to the crumbling walls, some scorched by fire, others shredded to bits. I peel one off of the ground, looking at the melting ink sliding off words. My words.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

 

I stand surrounded by crumbling walls, each containing stray memories.  A tricycle.  A roll of film undone, fluttering in the grey light.  A broken mirror.  Bits and pieces of the lives that were once part of mine.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

I avoid the streets, instead crossing the muddy ground, boards sticking out, barbed wire crisscrossing over doorways. I pass more memories, more failures, stepping over them and keeping my eyes on the sky.  I've held each, felt the weight in my hands, memorized every mistake, the silence stretching out around me.

But at the top of the hill, one house stands alone.  It is tall, with large empty windows and flowers peeking out of the muddy ice.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

It grows larger, towering over me as I stand on its steps.  I stop at the doorway I have never crossed.

All the others are filled with memories, left by people who left me. But here, the floors are dusty and bare.  A single grand staircase reaches up into the darkness of the second floor.

This is the last house.  I hesitate, then step across the doorway.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

The doorway fades; with every step I take the carpet turns to dust, floorboards breaking away.

 

I step onto the staircase.

The windows crack.  I take another step.

The wallpaper begins peeling off in large strips.

 

I take more steps, the floor melting, walls crumbling, windows shattering.  The darkness of the second floor opens to greet me, four words desperately repeating in my head.

 

Do you remember me?

The roof is caving in above my head, cracks opening and letting in the dim grey light of outside.  A thick layer of dust covers the floor. Along the back wall stands a tall mirror.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

The floor shudders beneath me, dust falling from the roof.  The mirror is clean, with a long crack running across it.  Wedged in between the glass and the frame is a scrap of paper.  

I reach for it, pulling it slowly and gently so it doesn't tear.

It's a photograph of the day you and her met.

The floor is buckling beneath my feet, groaning and twisting, as if the house is trying to spit me out. The mirror is cracking, the frame disintegrating.  The walls sag, pieces of the roof falling around me.  I try to stay balanced, dancing around the gaping holes and slipping in the dust.  I reach the window, shards of glass cutting my hands as I swing my legs out.

And jump.

I walk alone. I walk alone.