A Glimpse of Grey

He sat on the hard wooden bar stool , the discomfort of which he had grown accustomed to with time, smoking his rapidly depleting cigarette. He took a long final puff before putting it out on the round black ash tray that was now almost grey with years of usage, the last five or so years of which had been dominated by him. As the ascending smoke left his mouth its grey vapors seemed to instantaneously disappear into the dull environment of the bar. The once bright red wallpaper had faded into a sickly tiered brown and its thick rough carpeting was so completely stained that its original colour was a matter for much speculation. In fact it was one of the main things he would think about as he sat there every night after work sipping his whisky.
Turning over the sleeve of his pale green jacket he noticed a large black oil stain, undoubtedly from the old dysfunctional machine he was working on today at the boot factory. But it made no difference to him. His clothes were blotched with stains all over. Black oil on his pale green jacket; copper coloured chemical cleanser on his withered away grey pants and, like the bar carpet, the original colour of his shirt was undeterminable, having been stained with multiple dyes over the years. He too, just like the smoke, merged into his environment. Even his skin had faded becoming paler and paler over the years, a sharp contrast to the rosy cheeks of his childhood. A contrast that led to him very often looking in the mirror and questioning who that old hopeless man staring back at him was.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his pen, boldly engraved with the title ‘Merton and Sons Filling Pumps’, and began writing on a scrap of paper.
‘Dear Carl
Do you remember the little lake by the old beaten up farmhouse on Sheridan Avenue where we used to swim in our childhood days? Its cool waters giving our sweltering bodies shelter from the sun beating down hard upon our backs. Do you remember how those cool waters would embrace us, Carl? Not a day goes by that I don’t relive that feeling of pure ecstasy. I almost lost my job today for being late as I was lost in those memories. I could not go from our childhood world of cool breezes and dewy grass between our toes to that of my present. But this you know well too. I need to stop reminiscing now, it brings me nothing. We have to go on living, eh Carl?
To his left a fly tried desperately to escape through a small window into a vibrant green garden filled with trees sagging heavily with the weight of ripe fruit. Banging hard against the glass and falling down, simply to get back up and bang against it with even greater force and louder more outraged buzzing. But as time went on its will to escape continued decreasing and its strikes against the glass that contained it became weaker and weaker till it simply lay on the window sill, its back turned to the window; unable to look at what it longed for as it reminded it of its failed resistance. Gone is the buzzing, replaced by a hollow defeated silence.
He turned to his watch, it was eight seventeen. Time to make his way to his silent home. Eight seventeen was always time to make his way to his silent home. He walked out on to the main street, merging into a sea of grey faces. All making their way to their silent homes; at eight seventeen.