Divine Watch

A smoky mist drifts over the suburban landscape. The street lamps illuminate the tiny water droplets, making them appear to be like a divine being gazing down upon the earth. Sight is not obstructed much in this light air, you can see clearly for just over a dozen yards, diluted for another 100. It was a kind of mist you can only see through if there was something to see. If there was nothing to see then it was a void of swirling shadows.
A youth walks slowly down the street. He is not a boy, nor is he truly a full man in this day and age, he is in limbo. He is surrounded by divine beings as he walk, the strings of light that illuminate the little shoe box homes.
He passes by a particularly merry lawn, with the kind of blow up decorations that seem as they could so easily be blown away to poison the nearby river. A Santa taunts the youth by repeating “merry Christmas” in his mechanical voice. A Mickey Mouse with a matching hat stands next to the fat old saint, drawing the young mind back to those after school specials. The kind that everything is solved by smiling and being nice. The youth tries to ignore them as he walks faster, almost reaching an average pace. When the lawn is hidden behind the bend he slows back down, welcoming the strangled trees alight with divinity.
Soon the youth finds himself with his destination faintly visible behind the misty void, the town council having not thought the site deserving of divinity. A single obstacle stands in his way, the graveyard of swing sets and slides that is so well persevered by a contingent of Bachelor of Arts degrees. He steps slowly onto the concrete walkway over the grass, fearing what he may do if he touches the green: sit, lay down, or maybe turn back. So he walks slowly, meticulously, uncertainly. His only company on his walk is the gently trickle of rain that begins to kiss at his cheeks and the light of divinity in the mist, for people of a healthy mind don’t go for walks in this cool weather, even with the lack of snow.
So the youth continues upon his lonely path until he comes to the last obstacle obstructing his destination. An eight meter wide and kilometers long strip of grey cracking stone with a yellow line in the center. He looks both ways as one always should. He crosses certain he will not do anyone, who is out for an evening drive, the disservice of damaging their car. He makes it across the lifeless strip without any interruptions, and is consumed by the swirling fog that has been allowed to bring his destination into the void.
A simple bridge with a rail he always thought was too short. He leans lightly onto the short railing and pulls a short black object from his pocket. With a simple pull he reveals the cold steel hidden within. The blade that he bought in secret hangs over the rail in his gentle grip. The knife glints with the water below while he twists his wrist back and forth, his eyes contemplating the cold steel.
His gaze drifts upward to the divine beings not so far away, and he can’t help but ponder how their light creates such a small circle around them, but concealed among the shadows they travel far enough to glint off the distant water. While he ponders this, he unknowingly loosens his grip. An abrupt, though not loud, splash interrupts his thoughts; a splash like when a small rock or three inches of thin steel fall into a slow moving river and could be mistaken for a fish.
The youth’s gaze rests on his empty hand with the glittering water behind it. After a half hour the youth slowly straitens and begins his trek home, unable to complete what he sought to do; as he walks he can’t help but ponder how the divines so subtly affect our lives.