Crystal Simone Smith

When Darkness Comes

Sunset –
a sad clown
face paints a boy

We lived for the annual company picnic, gourmet food trucks, games, wine, and music until darkness fell – all free not counting employee blood, sweat, and tears. Michael, the family man, gripped a red wagon one year carrying two of his six children. So much depended on his hand – mortgages, baseball practices, every email account in the company. Still, no one saw it coming. After custody losses, second divorce, that same hand pulling a trigger to quiet the voice that kept telling him: do it, just do it, silence everything.