Novel & Cerita All Around Me Are Worn Out Faces

he says in an annoyed tone. "Grow up! It's not the end of the world. You will see your girlfriend again and sleep on the bed. But we got direct orders to watch this area." he retorts. "Look at the window and tell me what do you see?" he asks. Brian looks at the window to check what is outside. "Do you see anything?" he asks. "Well... I see stores that are closed. I also see feral cats searching for food. Lastly, I see a lot of trash on the floor." he observes.

I demanded and watched as he shrugged his shoulders right before he quickly scrubbed his hand over his face. “I think it’s out of respect for you.” James murmured to me in reply after a while and I turned his words around in my head as I glanced from feces to faces more carefully this time, which was when I noticed that I had met some of these people at other social gatherings without mingling or getting to know each other, and that I had most definitely seen a few of those faces on television, one way or the other. Maybe they weren’t as unknown as I thought they were at first. I lifted my hands up and ran it through my curls, stifling a yawn with my fingers almost instantly.

Then the others join. I watch, sick and satisfied, as they melt. As they become statues of their own unraveled lives, faces stretched across decades in a single instant, mouths open in endless, silent howls. The Unraveler laughs.

I put my hands inside the pocket of my jagger then reached for the mask covering my face, removed it, and thrown aside. There are lots of people coming and going. High street lights and shops nearby. There were also trees standing on the side of the road; others are dead, alive, and have no leaves that seem to have been deprived from life. The long I take my path, the laughter from different people keep on piercing my ears. I looked at the roadside and saw abandoned childs while their bones was touching their skins. I walk towards them and pulled out some bucks from my pocket. When I looked at the other side of the road, there are drunks disturbing other people passing by.

He wasn't there when I struggled to live through the tortures of Udipi Adarsh. I wipe my tears away and stand up from the floor. I turn around to face the mirror. The face I see is broken and tired. But how can a face show the scars that lie beneath? My lips curve into a smile. Fuck the world. I will do what I need.

It was somewhere in between — the kind of noise you make when your brain is too fried to pick a reaction. “What a day,” I muttered under my breath. My hand lingered on my head for a moment before falling limply to my side. I looked around at the others — or at least, the few who were left. Some of the faces I could see looked like empty shells now, drained of color, drained of fight. Some people just sat on their bunks staring at the floor. Others lay down without even taking off their shoes, as if they were too tired to pretend there was any point in comfort.

Their injuries were mostly bound up in bandages that did not look too clean. All of the men looked unkempt, covered with dirt and grime. They were all deeply tanned as though they had been consistently exposed to the elements- which was probably the case. There were marks of physical and mental exhaustion on every face I saw. Most of them sprawled in chairs, their eyes following the movement of people to and from the pack house. Those of them who registered my presence tiredly inclined their heads in greeting. I did my best to flash them reassuring smiles whenever our eyes met.

I started walking. The city swallowed me whole. I walked without direction, a ghost adrift in the river of humanity. Each face that passed was a story I would never know—a woman laughing into her phone, a man with a briefcase scowling at his watch, a pair of teenagers sharing a pair of earbuds, their heads bent together. They were all moving with purpose, propelled by their own private gravities, while I drifted, a speck of dust in a sunbeam, my orbit shattered. The pavement was a blur of cracked concrete and discarded gum wrappers beneath my feet. My mind was a blank slate, the echoes of that final click of the door still reverberating in my skull.

The words were enough to keep me steady. By morning, the redness around my eyes were enough to show my sleepless night. I washed my face in cold water, scrubbing until my skin stung, but the hollowness in my chest lingered. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this, I don’t want them to see all fragile and broken.

a very dangerous one even, and not worth the stress. Men like that, who wear soft shirts and have sharper eyes don’t just walk into the lives of girls who pay rent late and ride rusty bicycles. I huff. As I’m washing the mugs after dinner, i still catch my reflection in the window. My cheeks are a just little pink and my lips are curved up just a bit. I can't help myself, but still, I whisper