He locked the door and listened to the angry voices, matched word for word with angry footsteps that reverberated through the flimsy wall. Screams punctuated the air, like full stops in a sentence, sharp and ringing with finality.

He hears a crack, a sickening splitting of sound. He remembers the silence that followed; a hollow, dead thing that sucked in everything. He stood up and walked across the floor towards the window. His forehead rested against the cold pane of glass, his breath creating little patches of fog. He felt curiously empty.

Then it hit him.

And then there was a second crack. A much louder noise. A noise that came from the inside. It echoed off the walls of his tiny room and in his head. Ringing and ringing like an unanswered telephone. He gasped.

Now his hand clenches into a fist, his eyes dark but pleading.  There are more cracks than before: a splintering of something. It looks like a pane of shattered glass, held together with the tiniest amounts of friction. It is his heart. He can almost hear the hiss as a fissure forms along the fault line and the emotions seep out.

He closes his eyes against the tears.

With a guttural scream of rage he rips the posters off his walls. He hefts his ancient game console up in one hand and throws it towards the window, hard. Tears fly across the room as he swings, settling on the dust-covered floor like glistening diamonds. Footsteps approach the same as always. He tears out of the apartment and runs up the stairs. Shards of himself break off as he runs. No voice calls him back. He would not listen if it did.

He wrenches the metal door open, desperate. The cold wind slaps his face and stings his cheeks; it feels good. It feels real. He takes a mouthful of air and laughs hysterically between half-strangled sobs. This is his routine. He spins around in a circle, head lifted to the sky. Now the laughter is gone and the pain-filled cries begin.

She comes to him then, just as he remembers her; the first time she has answered his pleas.

"Mother?"

He steps forwards, disbelieving.

"Mother?"

She smiles at him and beckons him forwards. He opens his arms as though in embrace; of course he will come, he would do anything for her. Salty tears run into his open smiling mouth.

"Mother." He steps forwards and reaches for her.

A playful wind slams the metal door shut behind him. He spins around in surprise and stumbles.

He is too near the edge.