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My breathing is deep and even. There is a small, quiet pocket of peace and tranquillity surrounding me. I'm sitting with legs crossed on a flat, circular stone. There is a small tree behind me casting a shadow across my body and pointing straight ahead of me on the ground. There is a small saguaro and several cholla surrounding the stone. The rocks and sand around me glitter as if made of small flecks of gold and silver. All of this is contained in a bubble in the middle of a sea of chaos.
Swarming about me, above, below, and on all sides is a storm of cares, and disappointments, lost loves, regrets, guilt, pain, missed opportunities, trials, expectations, duties, demands, pleas, and threats. They are the faces of the past. They scream and pound on the protection I have erected around myself; desperate to regain their hold on me once again. They don't care about me. They only want to rend my soul and rip every last shred of decent emotion from me. I look from face to face and breathe a sigh. There is my father shaking his fist at me with a belt in the other hand. He says I'm no man because I preferred the violin to football. Mom is crying and cursing at me about the filthy, worthlessness of all men. My brother screaming at me that I can never be a man because I don't blindly accept everything life hands me without complaint. There's Laura locked in a passionate embrace with Eddie. My best friend and the girl I wanted to marry. There's my old friend Wayne still angry about us replacing him in the band when I was 17. There's mother again, shouting "demon possessed" at me. There's my ex-wife with her boyfriends, screaming for more money. My son, telling me I never cared. My daughter scorning my love. Forgetting how I was captured by her on the day she was born, and will never be free of that tiny hand in mine. There's Deb. Screaming she still loves me and always will, wrapped in the arms of another woman's husband. Linda being dragged away from me crying by her parents when we were only nine. Ann, Jill, Terry, Helga, Mary, Chris, Christina, Denise, all singing the song I know the words to so well. I just don't feel that way about you. Suzanne looking down her nose at me. Faceless voices screaming names at me, demanding I live up to their standards. Who do you think you are? You think you are all. You're special, but not enough so for me. No time for you. No room in my life for you. Stay at arms length. Lower your expectations. You have no rights. You only live to give me what I need. With a concerted effort, I push them all away, beyond sight and sound. A tear falls in my folded hands. I cannot stay here forever. I have things left to do in the world. All I can do is steal these small moments in this place of calm. All my own personal demons are still there, waiting for me. I cannot escape them in this life for long. So, I gather my remaining strength around me, and look out at the universe. So peaceful and still. Soon I will rejoin it, but not just yet. I do my best to remember who I really am. Not David, not Teo, not Ransom. I am something and someone else, of whom these are but shadow parts. All those who think they have me so trapped here have never known who or what I really am. You can not hold such as me by any means other than love. So little of it in this life. Maybe in the next. The stars shine down on me in silence. The world looms closer. Dear God, I'm so hurt. Please don't let it be too much longer. Wrap me in your arms. Hold my soul close to you. Give me the strength I need to see it through. I'm just so tired. Let me rest here just one moment longer. It's so quiet. Come sit beside me and tell me tales of Paradise. © 1999 by D. Ron Mack Written 7/1/1999 |
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