[ IP ] An Evening in St Petersburg

“ Dear, I think you still love me, but we can ’ t escape the fact that I ’ m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I ’ m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I ’ m not angry, either. I should be, but I ’ m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong. ” 
 
 These were her last words before she went. 
 
 I trudged through the rain. He had not been out for a while, and looked around at the bustling city center around me. So this is what this is what it is like to live again. I haven ’ t eaten in days, the only liquid I drink nowadays was his leftover stash of absinthe, and I haven ’ t spoken to anyone in months. Not after the incident could I bring himself to socialize with others nor live a normal life. 
 You would think that pain would get better with time but not this kind of pain. This pain was not like the kind you get after a cut or bruise. It was something fundamentally more painful than that. I self-medicated myself for that. I fear what would happen if I stopped. But that ’ s the thing with pain, it always demands to be felt. It creeps between the cracks of my soul, consuming the last dry spots of my mind. 
 I took a left and started down the street, my breath filling the crisp cold air with a mist. I really am a wicked man, a disgusting man. My beard is untrimmed, my hair is stained with the dirt that has accumulated from sleeping on floor for months. I look barely passable to be an animal, much less a human. The saddest part is that I barely feel human anymore. I feel like a piece of paper, merely existing and moving up and down with the waves of reality. 
 I took a right and plodded through the center of the boulevard I looked up at the clock tower and wondered where time had gone for me. It had only been 3 years since the incident. The incident. 
 My only son was so small. My wife at the prime of her life. I just had had the biggest break with my invention and was making as much before as all of his ancestors since the beginning of time put together. I had used his new found wealth to purchase an once-in-a-lifetime summer getaway on the shores of the Black Sea. The holiday home was so perfect, built entirely out of ancient Siberian timber. Christina. MY wife had found out about her. How could I have been so stupid? She cast me out of the home. A tragic mishap. I returned a day later to apologize to her. The fire. My son. My wife. I had run into the house to save them but it was too late. I touched my face. The scarring had never gone away. 
 A tram with a couple of chestnut horses passed and I took the last of the seeds that he fed the park birds with. He held out his hand and the front horse at from it. The small things like these all seemed to make me happy even in desperate times like these. 
 I crossed the street and went into the Church of the Blood of The Savior. These halls I have passed a million times, but each time was always a new adventure, the start of something new and the end of something else. His christening. His marriage. The baptism. His wife ’ s funeral. His son ’ s funeral. I took a right and pushed the doors leading to the cemetery. He took a deep breath as the freezing draft hit his face. 
 I walked past of the countless gravestones. Each of these people lived an interesting and unique life, not unlike mine. It made him feel small and useless like a speck of dust on the mountain of human endeavor. It had started to snow and I felt a snowflake grace the curve my nose. I finally reached my plot. Even after my meltdown, I could not bring himself to sell his plot of land in this cemetery. I felt like at least if I die, I will have a happy home among my family. 
 I knelt down at my wife ’ s tombstone. Met through a mutual friend at a dinner. Married three months later. Separated within 5 years. He looked at the marble tombstone. A simple epigram graced its top. I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am finally free. His eyes started to water. He crawled over to the tombstone right next to it. My son had only been 4 years old when the incident happened. His funeral was what had caused his mental break. I guess the smallest caskets are the hardest to bury. He graced the tombstone with his hands, stood up and slowly walked away. The snow drifted gently between them. 
 
 Edit: Grammar Stylistic and Spelling Changes.
