Home (freewrite)

The man collapses to the ground and barely feels as his head connects with the cold pavement. It is too much and it has gone on for too long. Or perhaps, it has not, but he can no longer know and he finds he does not care. All he wishes is that he could forget, he begs the voices in his head to stop, to be silent for just five minutes.

He can no longer remember the quiet. What was his head like when all was well? Was there peace, and could he smile? He doesn't remember what that feels like and it hurts, because he knows he used to like it. There's buzzing around him and he feels a pair of hands grab him by the shoulders. Somebody's trying to yank him up, but he tries to tell them not to bother.
No matter how deep they'd reach, how hard they'd pull, he can not get out. He's been condemned to this living hell and he must now bear it.

Focus back on the smile. Try, but you try in vain. It hurts to even keep his eyes open, as if it were some terrible assault on his soul. They say the eyes are gates to the soul and he wonders, briefly, where he's heard this before.
His eyes, but they can't be. Because they hurt so much, to even exist, breaks them apart, that any soul would just explode.
The stranger manages to pull him up, have him on his knees and the lost man looks up into the sky and sees absolutely nothing, for there is no more color in his world. His head feels bashed in and his arm have gone numb. Perhaps he's injured them in the fall. Nevermind.
'Are you alright, mate?' the stranger asks and looks in, but the place is empty. He sees nothing in these eyes, it's as if the man on the ground were soulless.
The man only wishes he could crumble back down. He doesn't want to stand, he doesn't want to sit. He doesn't want to exist, he doesn't want to walk or speak. He just wants to lie on the ground, with his pain.
And he wishes he could tell the stranger about the pain. He wishes he could tell anyone about the pain, about the voices, about the guilt. But there's no one who would understand. Hell, a few days ago, he wouldn't have understood either.

Remember now. He's heard the words before. No, not those. The one about the eyes. His eyes, his soul. She used to say that, didn't she? Of course she did. She'd lie by his side, after they'd made love, in their bed, opposite the mantel, and she'd turn and look up into his eyes and whisper secrets and dreams. With her own eyes.
Her green eyes that weren't quite like anyone else's. There was one extra thing, one extra sparkle of dust in them that shifted place, making her constantly different.
Her eyes that'll never open again. Never see again, never whisper anything to him. No more secrets, no more dreams.
No more hellos.
Not even a goodbye.
There was no time.

And the stranger, holding the man up, could see this happening, inside the man's eyes. He could, if he tried and concentrated, see the pain this man was feeling. But he can't, there are some hells you can only understand if you inhabit them yourself.
Because that's where the man on the pavement resides now. In Hell.
He has lost her green eyes, and by losing them, he has become homeless. No eyes that understand him anymore...

Prompt of the day was 'homeless'. Check out @mariannewest's blog if you'd like to join the freewriting fun - there's a new prompt every day and loads of fun people!