Love and Other Cruelties

As I wait for the train to arrive, the platform is remarkably quiet. But it’s late, I surmise. Next to me is a woman. Young. But older than she looks. Raven haired. She possesses a tranquil beauty. I cannot see her eyes, they are locked downwards, as she wrings her hands together in silent contemplation. A faint smudge of black mascara is nestled into the contour of her left cheek bone. Languishing on the floor beside her is a suitcase. Overly large. I wonder where she is going. And why? For a moment I become her. Her story becomes mine

There are times when life eludes her, passes like scenery flashing through the muddied windows of a train. It is not that she doesn’t see, or even that she does not feel, but more that she cannot begin to understand. She cannot unite the fragmented pieces of her past into a cohesive whole, a whole that makes sense, to her, a whole that enables her to be free. She fears freedom is a fallacy of man; trapped and chained by the rigours of a society that will never allow them to be emancipated.

Still, she is enticed by the idea - it is the unreachable, the unattainable ideal and the great American delusion. And how can she, after all, fail to be intoxicated by such a paradigm, decorated with the trappings of a Christmas turkey, corn fed for added flavour. It is a celestial dream born from the purest of intentions.

On certain days, she understands that she does not know the people who can help her, the ones who play poker with power, behind the darkened walls of influence; they are the people to know, she thinks when the echoes of self-pity reverberate through her semi-furnished bedroom - yes -they are the people to know. More often, though, she realises that they are the people she must avoid - they are the people that deal only in souls, sucking life through plastic straws and give only gold in return.

What had begun as her story in my head, something to pass the time, slowly became more vivid and tangible. I could hold her words to my chest as she thought. And on that dark Friday evening, I became a part of the life of another. I heard too much to ever forget it. Or her. Maybe it was the loneliness of the evening. Or maybe she wanted to share it with a stranger or the universe. I have not heard the universe speak before or since.

“I love you”

In a singular simple sentence. Just one vicious verb and you have culled us.

The words you used last night had lingered, suspending themselves in motion like migrating sparrows. But now, this morning, these words. These three words, laced with the poison of bitter lies and the stench of betrayal slump to the floor in a discombobulated heap. And we are no more.

I know that I will never look at you as I once did. As I did last night. You bastard. You changed everything. It didn’t have to be this way.

I cannot love you because loving means loss. Loving means feeling. I cannot. I am empty: empty like a mother’s nest after all her children have departed on the wings of the clouds; Empty, empty and sad. I cannot love you. I care about you too much to laden that burden on your unassuming shoulders. And besides, you cannot love what you do not know. And if you knew me at all. You would not have said it.

And for a moment as I look out on the ocean that has surrendered itself to the moon I wonder, Could I surrender myself? Could I love? And be loved in return.

So much is based on trust, on a singular element so minute yet so intrinsic to the nature of it all, can you risk it? Do you have the stomach or the heart to take that last leap into the unknown? You will not know until time stops. And you are faced with the realities of the dream, and then, only then, can you know. The line is delicate: fine like hair plucked from the head of a newborn child, delicate, fragile. And black like hurt. Leap or do not, but beware the Ides of March, the self-fulfilling prophecy of the doubters and the doubted. The betrayers and the betrayed.

I am scared, here alone, the things we said yesterday are remnants of a dream, floating somewhere between cognizance and delusion, instinct says to run, far away. To run and never look back. But I have run for too long and too far, and exhaustion will not carry me any further. To stay is to hold myself in front of a mirror; to face rejection; to be the loser in a fight I cannot win.

I am too far gone and too lost in my own head to see things as they are. The reality is black and white but I am stuck, steadfast in the grey holding the pain up to the light for inspection; an operation in precision; analysis, painful and slow, but yes.

Yes, I am dead. I had thought as much but I could not be sure.