Male 18-30. 179 words. Sewey: “Does anyone ever just wander off?”

From Charades by Paul Pasulka

But I was wondering. Does anyone ever just wander off into the eternal night. The snow ripping through his flimsy nightshirt - razor blades cutting into flesh, which would bleed like being sand-blasted if the blood didn’t instantly freeze. The whip of the cloth in the icy wind drowning out the voices from the research station, receding into the darkness, the gusts of snow concealing the terrors that stalk in the dark - pulsing and tumescent. Every night. There! Imperceptibly ever closer. Even when daylight creeps in, morphing into shadows that dart so quickly you can never quite catch them. So you pretend not to notice, to ignore them on those sun-dappled lonely walk through the parks where lovers kiss; the playgrounds, dripping with children’s laughter mocking you; the squeak of the swings ripping at your guts.

But to wander off into the deafening silence of the ice world. Maybe to slip, to stumble. To crash into an endless crevasse. Entombed for thousands millions billions of years. Until the sun explodes...  

So? Does anyone ever just wander off - from the station?