The Eyes of a Lost Soul

I looked at him. The hollow eyes of a hopeless case, with bruised, weary lids resting just beneath them… A body craving nicotine, a shiver that ran deep into his bones, and a silhouette growing thinner by the day. His clothes hung loosely off his frame, as if mirroring the emptiness within. He had a good heart. I once believed he would shine, rise, and illuminate everyone around him. But he was merely numb.

Because those who are tainted on the inside are doomed to be stained on the outside as well.

Eyes that couldn’t even face their own reflection desperately tried to look at the world. He couldn’t feel hatred, nor could he sense the gentle breeze of hope. To him, living was nothing more than mere existence. Days passed him by, but he only watched. A spectator, a ghost, a shadow questioning its own presence.

As cigarette smoke curled toward the ceiling, he remained silent. The despair that had settled into the corners of the room wrapped around him, pulling him further inward. Voices echoed in his mind—perhaps whispers from the past, or an internal monologue that never ceased. But he never spoke them out loud. The storm within him manifested only as silence.

I spent the whole day waiting for him to quiet down. To close his eyes and find even a moment of peace. But that never happened. He was completely consumed—by filth, by noise, by something unseen yet suffocating.

I wanted to reach him. To make him speak, to lift even a fraction of the darkness inside him. But words were useless. Maybe nothing tied him to this world anymore. Perhaps he had already burned through everything, leaving behind only a faint trace of his existence.

Before it was all over, I reached out to embrace him. I wanted to step closer. But he wasn’t angry at me. He had nothing left to say to the world. And as I drew near, everything around me turned black.

Time slowed. Sounds faded.

He was disappearing.

And all I could do was watch.