02 - Rage

His routine before starting to read a book was the same each day. He'd grab a blanket from the study, usually the dark-blue one, and he'd take it to his armchair next to the window. The view from his chair highlighted a beautiful array of nature and civilisation. He could see the Velantis pond a couple of hundred yards away, surrounded by bushes and trees all covered in winter's embrace. The pond had long ago frozen over, and he imagined all the animals that were hibernating in their secret spots. They had their secret spots, and so did he.

He often compared himself to those animals but found himself saddened by his incompetencies. Those animals by the pond all had a singular goal in mind. A reason to live. His was no reason. Only a fascination turned into an obsession with reading everything in this library. His was no goal. Only a thread by which he tied around his fingers to keep it from snapping.

Looking back down at his book, he continued to read from where he left off. The last book in the library which he hadn't read. It wasn't anything special. A worn-down book, but not the most worn down in their library. Not especially big, or small. Its colours plain. Its contents all too normal to earn its place in the grand Velantis Library.

Still, Danny didn't mind. He felt strangely attached to this book. Probably because it was the last one, nut that didn't explain it all. He saw himself in the book. Ordinary in all ways. Worn-down. Clearly neglected compared to the collection of classics that were kept in pristine condition. He almost felt bad for it.

The story was about a farmer. His crops died one unlucky evening right before winter. His wife left him and the kids went with her. He had absolutely no chance of survival for the coming cold. His heating would quickly run out and with no surplus of crops to pay for any extra heating, he was doomed. Everyone considered him dead by all rights. He held no grudges toward his family. In the world of life and death, life was the winner. He gathered all the essentials that were left, and he decided to walk south, in an attempt to evade the winter. The cold would set in soon, and he had not much time left.

And so he set out.

He walked steadily. His pace constant, his mind focused. His body clearly just as fit as it was twenty years ago. Miles went past. And the cold didn't stop. It was fierce and it was patient. But so was he. And so the cold and the farmer battled for a month until the farmer couldn't carry on walking south. Instead, he sat down in the middle of the road and ate the last bit of his food. He told the wind, "I have not given up, but you have beaten me". His consciousness faded in and out of sleep for the next week. The snow creating a make-shift igloo around his body. With his usable water almost gone, he knew he would not last another twenty-four hours. He took the last sip with a ferocity unlike a man waiting to die. Indeed, he needed all the strength he could get for his final battle. To hell with rationing.

He murmured underneath his breath something he had thought of these past weeks on the road to keep him awake. If his eyes close one more time, they might close forever.

And so, he murmured on and on.

And the book suddenly ended.

Danny's confusion was evident in his face. Its ugliness clearly showing his inexperience with basic facial expressions. He turned the last page and there was nothing. No more words, no postface, no preface explaining its ambiguity. Absolutely no explanation as to what he just read. He put the book down and returned it back to its unassuming position in the bookshelf.

He was angry. He hadn't felt that way for a long time. He was angry at the farmer, at the author, at his parents, at Larry. He was angry at all of them. His knuckles whitened, and his unkempt nails dug into his palm. A trickle of blood slid down his fist and splattered on the finished hardwood. He could not accept it.

For the first time in his life, he could not accept it. He could not accept the story of the farmer ended just like that. In a rush completely new to Danny, he grabbed the book, and with his blood-stained hands ripped it to shreds. His face was twisted, his emotions erupting at full force. He ripped the cover, its table of contents, it's about the author. All of it.

His heart was racing, his breath uneven. The library was covered in paper as if the winter had seeped inside. As if the cold had finally consumed that little house that kept it at bay. Tired from something other than living, Danny calmed down. He lied down, closed his eyes, and thought about the farmer.

The farmer should've been angry, Danny thought. He should have cursed his wife and kids. He should not have accepted their betrayal. He had to rage. Rage!

The windows of his study smashed open and winter entered and enveloped him in cold. The sun was already long gone, and the night was consuming him.

No!

And at that moment, all the pages of the book shone a warm golden hue. Suddenly, Danny knew exactly what the farmer had murmured moments before his death. Oblivious to the magical scene happening around him, Danny whispered, just like the farmer did,

"Do not go gentle into that good night."

But what came next astounded even Danny, for never had he felt such overwhelming emotion to shout, to scream, to angrily beckon that dead thing inside of him.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.