Dusk settled upon the bustling city, casting a veil of tranquility over the chaos of life. Ryan was in his luxurious office on the top floor of an impressive skyscraper, poring over a stark of papers. He had been tirelessly working on the high stake project for months now, but he couldn't shake the gnawing feeling that something was amiss.
Consternation cause through him, leaving him with a perpetual and inexplicable sense of incompetence that refuses to be suppressed -as the feeling seems to be growing more intense with in him.
Just as the powerful sun pours its golden radiance over the horizon in the morning, Ryan would pour his time and energy into work. The company he had long nurtured bore testament to his dedication as it bloomed like roses on gull bloom.
Yet despite having shouldered a ceaseless cacophony of responsibilities, Ryan's heart remained in total disarray. The void within him was hungrily engulfing him in all consuming darkness, throwing him into nothing but total confusion.
In the search for solace and belonging, he had thought it was just a random feeling that would leave him soon. Instead of wallowing in such lonely feeling, he made sure to do as Anne had pleased, meeting up with every of her demand.
Their love had blossomed through youthful days, having fought over myriad challenges and triumphed over extraordinary odds. Ryan's mother, however, had disapproved of Anne from the beginning, but love has blinded his eyes and defeated his ears, as it often does to these in the thrall.
Their marriage started with a great enthusiasm, and Ryan did everything within his power to make sure that Anne was embedded in the warm embrace of happiness. He had once thought that her joy would fill the void in his heart, but over time, the painful truth dawned on him; the happiness of others was not enough to satiate the monstrous hunger within him that kept growing as days rolled by.
His mind was plagued with thoughts of life that may have been. Perhaps, she had cast a spell on him that pass beyond the limit of time -the enchantress from the past, named Ciara. Even with him having Anne in his life, he's lately seeing Ciara's face at every corner of the house -every of the places he has seen her around the house.
True to his thought, she was but an enchantress, whose spell was starting to have an effect on him even after she's long gone, fleeing into the dark night.
Like a graceful butterfly, she escaped from the suffocating darkness of their marriage, fleeing into the unknown realms of the neither omitting nor reflecting light of the night, armed with nothing but her will and a newly inked divorce paper in her delicate grasp.
She had disappeared with no traces at all that even his mother, who seems to have eyes and ears around, lost track of her. What was left of Ciara was her signature on the divorce paper and the small note she left behind for him.
"When you call upon memories from your past, sometimes the pains of thousands of sorrows can revisit you. Such is the relentless nature of longing." Ryan thought, beads of sweats longing his anxious brow.
Reluctantly and hesitatingly, he stood up from his seat as he walked and stood behind the wall of his office's window, his gaze fixated on the fully crammed city of States. His thoughts were clouded with no other person than the enchantress from his past-so, he's starting to refer her as.
He was tormented by the sudden and the not easily accounted thoughts of Ciara, the woman he had divorced with apparent conviction. Questions erupt like volcanoes in his mind, spewing torrents and uncertainty and despair.
"How impossible." He chastised himself in a loud tone. His heart filled with guilt and anguish as he attempts to drive the thought of Ciara far away from him. "How would Anne feel if she ever finds out I'm suddenly growing some unclear feelings for Ciara?"
Anne is now his wife now, his beacon in the stormy seas of life; the thought of yearning for something more, something beyond the comforting boundary of his marriage, seemed treacherous and riddled with betrayal.
Oblivious to Ryan's inner turmoil, the city keeps moving, each individual carrying a complex reason that knit a vibrant tapestry. Silent, forlorn and heavy with unspoken burden, the weight of unsettled emotion weighed down his every step like lead.
"Could I ever find completeness in purpose, in love and in life? Is happiness a mirage, vanishing into the horizon as we approach it?" Despairing, his voice is just a breath above a whisper.
He pondered with in himself as he wondered if he has ever made the right decision with everything he's ever done since his existence.
"Have I ever done every right on my own with no one's intervention?" He finds himself wondering out aloud. The more he thought it through, the more he realized he ever got the chance to make a decision for himself.
Now the only decision he managed to think was the right one is starting to turn out to be a lie -a mere mirage that might sooner disappear into the dark shade of the night.
"Can't things ever go right as I ever plan?" He desperately questioned himself, rubbing his fingers repeated on his temples with his both eyes closed. His thoughts were in total disarray, confusion slowly clouding his mind.
All his life, every of his steps and doing has always been determined and dictated by his mother, who gave him no chance to choose or make any decision for himself.
"What if mother has been right all through this time?" He asked himself. "Maybe I was wrong for breaching the contract and asking Ciara for a divorce in the first place?"
He sighed deeply as he looked out through the window, the citywide horizon calling out to him as it shimmed in hues of orange and pink, emphasizing that there is always more than one way to embrace the horizon; where you turn will ultimately determine the story of your life...