Faceless Devotion

Elias had forgotten what it felt like to sleep without pain. Every morning began with the same dull ache in his chest, the same burning behind his eyes. The alarm clock on the table had long since broken, but he didn’t need it anymore. His body woke him before dawn a habit carved into his bones after years of labor. The kind of routine that no longer asks for permission. He would sit up slowly, letting the dizziness pass, and stare at the ceiling of his small, cracked apartment. The walls were gray with damp stains, the air thick with the smell of oil from the workshop below. His hands, resting on the thin blanket, were covered with calluses and small cuts that never fully healed. He flexed his fingers once, twice, then stood and began his day. The workshop downstairs was already half awake by the time he arrived. Metal clanked, voices muttered, and the old lights flickered weakly overhead. Elias never spoke unless spoken to. He simply worked fixing engines, hauling scrap, wiping oil from the floor. His motions were precise, mechanical, almost lifeless. He didn’t hate the work. He didn’t love it either. It was simply what he did. He’d learned long ago that hate and love were luxuries meant for people who had choices. When the day ended and his boss tossed him a few coins, he didn’t go home. He’d move to the marketplace, helping vendors pack up stalls or carry crates until the sky dimmed to violet. Then, sometimes, a man from the shipping yard would call his name, and Elias would follow, working until his muscles screamed and his vision blurred. By the time he finally returned to his apartment, his body felt more like a burden than a vessel. He’d collapse onto his cot, the springs creaking beneath his thin frame, and listen to the city’s restless hum outside his window distant cars, shouting, laughter that never reached his floor. Sometimes he would sit by the window for a while, elbows on his knees, staring at the lights flickering across the wet streets below. He’d watch the silhouettes of strangers passing under streetlamps and wonder what it felt like to be one of them. Someone who could stop walking when they wanted to. Someone who could rest. He had tried to rest once. Months ago, when his body had finally given out for a few days, he’d stayed home, lying in bed with a fever burning through him. But the rest made him feel useless. The silence pressed too hard against his thoughts. The stillness became unbearable, as if the world was whispering that it didn’t need him after all. So he went back to work the moment he could stand again. He had no family left, no one waiting for him. The people who noticed him were mostly customers or strangers who forgot his name a day later. A few had tried to talk to him — a kind woman from the bakery who used to leave him bread, a boy from the workshop who sometimes walked home beside him — but they all stopped eventually. Life always pulls them away. And Elias, in his quiet way, accepted it. It was easier not to expect anything. The fewer attachments he had, the fewer things he could lose. He often told himself that he wasn’t sad, just tired. But there was a difference between exhaustion and emptiness, and some nights, he could feel the hollow space inside him expanding. When the lights went out and the city faded into gray shadows, Elias would lie awake listening to the faint hum of the refrigerator, the dripping of a pipe behind the wall, the slow rhythm of his heartbeat. There were moments when he thought he heard something else the creak of a floorboard, the sound of wind brushing against glass but he’d learned to ignore it. The building was old; noises like that came and went. He told himself that no one was there. That he was safe. That he was alone. And so every morning, before the sun rose, Elias would pull himself from the sheets again. He would wash his face with cold water, wipe the fog from the cracked mirror, and whisper to his reflection, “Just one more day.” Then he’d go back to work. Because that was all he knew how to do.