Gone Fishing

He had dwelt in his sorrow ever since. That was the day she had been killed. A drunk driver hit her as she was taking his car to the shop. He couldn't help but think, what if I had done this myself like I said I would. Since that day, every ounce of him had been spent preparing for this day. He quit his job, sold his house, gave up his possessions and relegated himself to this place. He had been living here for the past three years relishing each painful day. He was a member of the walking dead, a soul in purgatory scorched by the weight of a thousand feelings bearing down on shoulders not meant to bear a burden. There was no solution. For all his smarts, for all his skills he was a man broken; life had grabbed him firmly and snapped him like a toothpick. There was no where to hide. He pulled from his closet the last remaining possessions of his former life. He had spent the last three months preparing for this day. It was the fifth anniversary of her death and exactly 25 years since they had first met. He undressed leaving his clothes in the corner. He pulled out an ironing from the closet. As he closed the door he observed his naked body in the mirror. He turned his head to the side as if to wonder what happened. Then he smiled. The years had taken their toll. Where had once stood a formidable being, now stood a man of greater means, with a belly engorged with sins and hair sprayed white with meaningless importance. He pressed his pants and his shirt. It was methodical, just like the rest of his life: first the legs on the inside, then the outside, then the rest check for the perfect crease. Only once the pants were complete and covering his lower half would the ritual begin anew for the shirt. first the sleeves, then the back then the front. Every detail minded, every crease perfect. No errors were made. He looked one last time in the mirror as he went blindly through the motions of wrapping the noose around his neck. It was her favorite tie and, of course, his as well.

He went to what was supposed to be the kitchen and washed clean her glowing smile. He placed the frame on the desk and tied his shoes. He sat down and tried to think what he had spent all his life doing. Nothing but emptiness. Empty promises made to empty souls in an empty world. His life was a stage and this was his curtain call. He pushed the button, red just like in the movies. He laughed. He closed his eyes and imagined the warmth of her touch, the softness of her kiss, the smell of her hair. He moved gently around her imaginary being smiling. He reached in the drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. He pulled a pen from his pocket and began to write: My name is Jim and this is my story. Word by word he completed his picture. Always sparing but including detail to just the perfect degree. He reached the end of his Knight's Tale, leaving us with a few everlasting words: Love is an inadequacy hidden in the deepest part of our souls. It is a person that longs for years long forgotten, an animal that lusts for redemption. Love is what creates us, love is what destroys us and without love we cannot go on. Love is God and our lives its sad tales. It is almighty, it is the savior and the destroyer, the creator and the created. Love is forever. Finishing his preparations he sat back down in his chair. Amidst the raucous of the late evening traffic let loose the silent whimper of a Colt 45. Everything around him burned. In life, he could not burn the bridges to the past, but in death he had won. He was at peace and love, happiness, fear and anguish were relics in the museum of his life. The only thing he left behind was a solitary work of art tinged by the flames that engulfed his small apartment, but rescued by his planning. Sirens wailed in the distance, but smiling he drifted gently into sleep.

Ever After

Just as quickly as it came it was gone. A glimpse into a past that he no longer lived. A love that was forsaken from the beginning just like every other part of him. It had started young. He was a precocious child with those around him recognizing his exceeding talent at a young age. He was the first in his class to learn to read, he was better than everyone else at math and science, he could solve the most complex puzzles, he could do so many things, but one thing he never managed was to fit in. His teachers marveled at him, called him a genius, but for all his intelligence he was devoid of something that truly mattered to him: human connection. His father had left before he could remember and though his mother did her best she was too busy providing for him, too busy making sure they could survive to give a boy of his nature the attention he needed and deserved. The little attention he did get could not nurture his maturation. He slowly faded into the shadows, a diamond in the rough. The one friend he had his whole life was in this picture, but even she had left him. They had met when he was 8 years old. He remembered looking out at his peers enjoying themselves during their break from another day at school when she had come and sat next to him. Taken aback he had been unable to think of what to say. "Hi, my name is Sally." She had said. He couldn't remember what his response was, or if he even had a response for that matter. All he knew is that he instantly felt a connection to this girl. He could see in the gentle curls of her golden brown hair something that was similar to him. She in someway, though he didn't know then what way, was just as damaged as him. Perhaps it was a smile, perhaps it was reciprocation of the simple introduction, but they became the best of friends. The others would make fun of them, but they didn't care. They were two pieces in a puzzle carved with the precision of a laser fitting together perfectly, each incomplete without the other. So it had been for a long time. They learned and grew together reaching high school and though it went unspoken, unnamed their relationship grew stronger and evolved with their own beings. As they changed so did the nature of their relationship. Friendship nurtured by the same sense of isolation that greeted each of them when they got home grew into love. They dated throughout high school and when it finally came time to pick a college they found a way to be together. Though he was her intellectual superior he had become unable to function without her companionship. She was more independent, but he made her feel safe. The young boy had grown and become transformed into an imposing being. He stood six feet four inches tall, weighing a healthy two hundred and twenty pounds. Though not muscular, his body was well toned. A gentle gristle grazed his face and his short light brown hair completed his look. He was not graced with the beauty of a model, but was superior to the average man. He was in every way what she wanted.

After the graduated college they were married. He started his job as an engineer working for a defense company. He would come home everyday and gaze into her eyes. A happiness would flood him as he imagined their life, their happily ever after. Usually so focused, coming home allowed him to escape the work he did. The work that earned him that corner office, the same one he sat in staring out the window, the watching the sun set thinking of years gone by when he would have been right there next to her. They're legs would be dangling carelessly over the edge of the cliffs, her head would rest gently on his shoulder and they would smile and stare in wonder at one of nature's greatest miracles. A small, almost sly smile started to make its way across his lips only to be interrupted by the loud ringing of his telephone. What now, he thought to himself. As if I don't sacrifice enough for these people they can't leave me in peace for just a moment. He answered the phone in the same calm, collected manner he always did, "Hello, Jim speaking." A look of horror crossed his face as he found himself longing for sunsets past, for moments long forgotten. His calm resolve was replaced by horror as he grasped for reason in a world of hurt.

The Picture

They had always told him never to return if he ever got out. Good thing he had listened to them. Where were they now? They had all fallen by the wayside. If his childhood had left him with anything, they had taken it with them as one by one, they disappeared and he was left with the nothingness he had come from. Why did they leave? He hadn't changed. Had he? He didn't even know anymore. He lay on the bed, allowing himself to sink momentarily into the hopelessness that had been tugging at the corners of his mind for so long, he couldn't even remember when it had begun. How nice it would be to just let himself go. After all, there was nothing left for him here, or anywhere for that matter. As the pool of despair engulfed his senses, threatening to drown out even the intermittent gunshots in the alley below, he looked around wildly, hoping beyond hope for something, anything to hold on to; something to which his wretched existence could cling to avoid slipping beyond the point of no return. A flash of light startled him out of his ever-deepening stupor of self-loathing. It was nothing but a beam of light reflecting off his treasured sign that vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him in the never ending darkness. As he turned to lie back down on his bed and allow himself to wallow in his own despair, a dusty picture caught his eye. Almost completely hidden behind the sign and an old leather dog collar, he had forgotten the picture was there. Though the picture was worn and faded like everything else in his life, the face of the woman in the picture shone with such love and vitality that his legs seemed to melt from underneath him and something stirred in the empty cavity where his heart had been.

Home is where the heart is.

He turned away. That, out there, was hell: a place devoid of human compassion, or humanity for that matter. It was a darkness that had taken over his core and left him a lazy puppet to his own misery. A single emblem stood that told the story of his existence. Sitting upon the counter, colored yellow with the wear of the years sat a small sign: "Home is where the heart is." Was, he thought to himself. At first glance, it was just another piece of fake art, in a world full of fake things: a carpet of color long forgotten, walls belying protection from the elements, a little plate tinged with dust, losing its color and its heart as he stood there watching. However, this was the view of a outsider. He knew better. This one was special. It was hand crafted on stone imported from a quarry in Italy, the only place in the world where this stone could be found. It had taken years of gentle patience and warming to make this stone, the heat and pressure in the Earth's crust had gently molded it into the glory that it is. No. The glory that it was. The shiny white surface had been decorated with the gentle strokes of an experienced hand. He had visited shortly after he bought his first house. A nice villa overlooking the mountains, a place of calm, quiet resolve that reflected his own rise up the societal ranks. He was born of this darkness, but had been molded into a gentle form that burned brightly, perhaps too brightly. That is after all how he ended up back here, he gently melted away and returned to a pile of wax, devoid of form, devoid of passion, without body and spirit. His life was one of prophetic existence: from ashes to ashes and dust to dust. He was destined to live with pomp and circumstance and die with a small, silent whimper.

Origins

As he gazed down on what could have very well been the sad street corner where he had been born, a single Filet-O-Fish wrapper drifted on by, carried by currents of air as invisible as the people who called this pitiful scrap of land home. That there was trash everywhere was not a revelation. There was always trash lying around: paper, plastic, or flesh, but lifeless all the same. Every so often, the plaintive wail of a newborn child pierced the dank air, giving the alley a sorely needed spark of life. But this burst of energy that spurred the limbs of the worn-down and beaten bodies scattered across the neighborhood lasted but a second, as fleeting as a child's life was likely to be in this concrete jungle; a solitary flash in a pan of ooze and darkness. The children quickly learned to emulate the lethargy and stupor that engulfed them from the moment they entered this cruel world. Though the sun occasionally filtered through the rusty, dilapidated boards of buildings barely holding together, none of the light was reflected in the eyes that seemed to peek out from every shadow. Strangers who had the misfortune of wandering into this land-locked bermuda triangle could only hope they were lucky enough to make it back out with their hopes and dreams still intact. As for those born to the sorrow and hopelessness that pervaded not only the people, but the very cobblestones on which they walked, it would take nothing short of an Act of God for one of them to make it out alive. But what God giveth, God taketh away as well, if only to remind the slum people of their proper place in the world.

And so it begins...

They claimed the apartment had a view. Some view. Below the fire escape of a balcony, the darkness of a deserted alley emanated a putrid odor that could only be described as death. The whole city was a wasteland, like something out of an old black and white horror movie. Overcast on all but the most fortuitous days, the sky was eternally ominously gray. Solitary pieces of paper fluttered from side to side as if afraid to attract the attention of a solitary passerby. But though there were never any stray pedestrians in this area of town, people nevertheless shied away from distinguishing themselves for fear of catching someone, anyone’s attention. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you could smell the sweet smell of the sugary treats being baked down the street. Kids gathered from miles around, lining the alley below in a single spontaneous moment of eager anticipation. But with the moment vanished the eager innocence and carefree civility of the children. Within seconds, the alley would be filled with a throng of slavering, slobbering hyenas, eager for their own chance at the small slice of heaven that the sweet smell portended. When all the treats were gone and the sweet smell had been replaced by the same putrid odor, only stronger, the alley once again resumed its lonely solitary existence only a few red stains worse for the wear. How different this life was from the one he had imagined.