Winter

The world outside was gray and cold. A bitter wind blew across the frozen ground, where dead brown grass lay in clumps. Trees rattled their stiff branches, missing the chirping and chattering warm, live things that used to brighten drab days such as these; the unwelcoming outdoors had shut them tightly into their winter homes.  
   He had been staring out his bedroom window watching the cold winter day, and had felt that the winter was actually within him, rather than outside, where it belonged. He had felt this way for a long time. The last time he could remember being happy was…well, not recently.
   He wanted to be like the strong, steady oaks outside his window that withstood the mighty winter wind. But he wasn’t like them; he was like the beaten-down dead things that weren’t strong enough to survive the winter. Like the flattened grass that had given in to the onslaughts of the wind and cold, he knew eventually that he too would give in to the winter that lingered in his soul.

   In some ways, that thought gave him peace, the only peace he had known for some time. The thought that there was an end in sight, at least.
  He had finally pinpointed the source of his unhappiness. Fear. An ugly, mighty monster that prevented him from doing the things he wanted most. He wanted to be out among the others, to laugh with them, to talk with them, to live with them. But the nagging, gnawing fear continued to grow. He didn’t think he was strong enough to overcome it.
  He was afraid of the future, afraid of the unknown. Always a planner, when his life had not turned out as he had hoped, he had sunk into this deep depression, was unable to rouse himself from its depths. He had attended a good school and obtained a degree in politics, but having grown disenchanted with the hypocrisy and self-interest of the political scene, had found his degree useless. He was unable to determine another course of study or career path to interest him, and had taken a job as a waiter at a dingy dive near his apartment, just to make ends meet. Perhaps it was the coarse nature of those who frequented the place - alcoholics and druggies, people just as disenchanted with life as he was - or the long, tiresome hours he worked daily to make ends meet, but his future had grown increasingly bleak the longer he stayed there. Yet, he couldn’t find the energy or drive to find another job.
  And so, as he stood looking through his window at the bleak wintry scene, he knew that today would be it. He had bought the pistol a few weeks ago, but had stored it away, hoping that something would change. But nothing had, and any remaining hopes he maintained had disappeared.
  Feeling a resolve he had not felt in a long time, he withdrew the pistol from its drawer. It was already loaded, making the job even easier. The cold, dead weight in his hands, the shiny smoothness of the barrel, none of it scared him, and at this he was surprised. He had expected to feel anxious and uncertain, but this unexpected strength of will only made this seem the right decision.
  Turning from the window, he slowly, steadily brought the pistol to his mouth. He pulled the trigger.
    
   Outside, young green shoots had begun to poke their tips out from the cold ground among last summer’s dead grasses. Spring was just around the corner.
   He could not have seen these signs of new life from his vantage at the window.