“Because silence fell before me, in constant human struggle, all I had been aware of left me over death’s widely open doors. It couldn’t have been more than a few years, even less than that if I decided to put some thought into it, but where could it all have gone. I went to sleep day after day. Walked the night like I had something to prove and finally here I am, listening to silence, to light-less battles filled in banter of a society willing to kill one another over ideals rather than living to grow because of them. What do I know? I am a little old man now, wasted in bitterness, decay, lost memories that might as well be dreams. I barely even shower anymore. I mean what’s the point? My wife died forty years ago when I just turn thirty-eight and our two kids, well if I see them once a year that’s just too much. Too much that I deal with them, or too much that they don’t want to deal with me. I am not a cynic I am a realist. I can still walk, I can even still wipe my own backside, but that doesn’t mean I care enough to take a stroll down some random street.
Forget it, right, forget it all, right. I am just happy I get to sit down and watch my stories unfold on television. I don’t have to deal with drama, because it is all scripted anyway. I suppose one of these days I will learn Spanish so I can understand what they’re saying, but for now I like that one young girl on there. Ms. I’d touch her left and right Gomez. If I was younger, the things I could do to her…”
“So what helps you wake up in the morning?”
“A good cup of coffee, maybe a small…”
“No, no, no, I mean, what motivates you to wake up each morning, if you just seem like you’re wasting through this life? Not so much what “wakes” YOU up?”
“Oh, well, that is a good question Jacob. If I had to make any sense of it all, I’d say maybe it was about time I started looking at life. Not so much watching life. Do you remember when everyone was up in turmoil because of all those deaths?”
“Oh sure, who wouldn’t remember such an event. It turned our lives around.”
“Did it now? I guess it did, I guess it changed everything from what it might have been to what it really had been all along. Life is short Jacob. Life is too short to worry about where we are going, or how we are getting there.”
“Wait, what about advancements, and technology? You don’t think we should spend time caring about these things for future generations?”
“I do, I do, but that is not what I meant at all. I was talking more about love Jacob, love. The kind you fight over, the kind that makes you do stupid things like speed down the road with your T-tops down. Or try and balance your body over a side of something, fall down and break a bone because it was all worth her wonderful smile, or that sweet laugh.”
“You are talking about Susanna?”
“Nah, I loved my wife dearly, and I miss her every day I am stuck alive. But she is not the love I had. She was the love I found.”
“Do you mind telling me more?”
“I suppose this city should know what it is like to understand love. We’d fight every day, over dumb crap too, who said this, this way that way, anything that would make our heads pound. But we didn’t always end our days that way. We’d kiss goodnight, or hold each other to sleep. It seemed to resolve itself by night fall. We were the odd couple out though. In those days you couldn’t live with somebody unless you were “married” because it seemed immoral or some bull. It didn’t help her having such beautifully long pin straight black hair and me with trademark curls. Well, when I had hair I mean. Times were as they were my friend. They just seemed to keep molding over social standards. Change became fad, and fad forced order. When some ideal slipped by, unheard, unnoticed, our society found a way to embrace it.
It had to come down to one of us breaking down a wall that was not meant to be broken. It was not life that put us on hold, or how those around us acted that built tension, but our hearts that killed all that could have been dreams. It was just so perfect, it was just so, so… it was just simple, coy at times, but simple in a pure way. It was her kiss, or how when I hugged her I would place my hand around her neck right under her hair line. It was different for us, it was new. We were together for about five years or so before it became evident that maybe it was five years one day to many. I’ll admit it was most likely my fault. I wanted to spend life with her, with those moments that came and went. I wanted those. I wanted each breathe to slowly come from my soul, spreading out to life. Here, she wanted life to be spent with us. Where will we live, what kind of jobs will we have, how many kids… blah, blah, blah, blah… God I miss her.”
“As confused as I just got, who called it off?”
“It is not about who called if off, it’s why it was called off. There are two people in this world. Both can love as hard as the next, but it is rare they can live harmoniously among one another. You have those who live in a moment, and those who live for that moment. I live in a moment, I dance around it. I wake up every day knowing it could end, or should end, or a friend will turn up dead again. At my age, every friend becomes one less over each passing year. I worry about my future, please, don’t get me wrong, but this is about something more, something pure about life. I knew what I wanted, and I knew I wanted to talk about those dreams with whoever it was I loved, but I didn’t want that to become my deciding factor in “Am I wasting my time with this person” kind of questions. I would have lived my days out with her if she only allowed life to be heard one day at a time. Love is too strong to be seen fifty years from any given day.
It was obvious she had to have been a person who lived for that moment. She wanted to know tomorrow would be ready for her. That life just started to build on yesterday. She didn’t, in no way, want to feel like it was all beginning again. She wanted it to be a continued expression of her last painting… as she would put it. God she was passionate, she knew what she wanted. I guess we fought over things because she may have felt I didn’t know want I wanted. Every month was planned out for her, she knew where and when we had to be. AND, what we should have to bring.
I did not think it was possible to fall so hard for a person. I have never even loved my kids as much as I had loved her. Stupid fighting, I should have given up on my arguments… but there was something there that had to be fought. My right as who I am. I realized, over time that we were not fighting about who wanted what, or ideals for that matter, we were fighting over consistency. I had my patterns and she had hers. I knew what she was going to say whenever something came up, OH, and her as well with me. We never tried to change one another. We knew what made us up. Our personal ideals had drawn us together from our start.
Ha, she used to do this cute thing with her tongue, when she was thinking, where it would just stick out enough to be seen and her teeth looked like they were holding it at bay. Her beautiful lips would be crooked, somewhat bunched up I suppose, and it would be there… that one little thought. She was so brilliant, so unbelievably talented in making me love her.”
“So what ended it if all these things were there but you still loved one another?”
“Of course you’ve heard how love is all you need, but it is nowhere near being true. We had love, we had a ton of it, but I cheated on her. I walked outside, went to our local supermarket, found a woman… well, I didn’t find her, it just so happen I met her there… one thing lead to another and we rented a hotel room… You get the picture.”
“Just like that, you had all that, and you cheated on the love of your life?”
“Just like that…”
“Just like that… did you feel bad?”
“No, it was my moment. It was what I had to do in my life. I could not walk away from it. I couldn’t deny what I had been shown that day, where life took me. I could have said it was because of our consent bickering, or our playful yet truthful bantering, that persuaded me to listen against my heart. But it just was not a second thought to me.”
“Have you ever cheated on your wife, Susanna?”
“No.”
“…Why not?”
“I didn’t feel persuaded. I thought it made sense with Susanna.”
“But… but you said she wasn’t the love of your life, that she was the love you had found in life.”
“Should it make her any less special? Should I be perfectly happy with a love I found, or a love that I may have, and where I still do believe was the love of my life, or must I conform to how people see things?”
“You are free to live how you please. It is because people fought for that right. You should enjoy your choices… right, or wrong.”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…”
“What did I say?”
“You said rights, fought, and what we have… HAHAHAHA!!! Oh thanks, I needed that.”
“Okay, what?”
“First of all, they are privileges bestowed down upon us by our government, whom by at any point can take them away from you. Secondly, if I were in any other country I would have the same freedoms I do here.”
“That is not true at all. There are many countries that make it so you are guilty before proven innocent.”
“And being held without bail is showing someone’s innocence here? Come on, you are what… twenty, twenty-three?”
“Actually, I am Twenty-six.”
“Alrighty, I don’t think I want to get into this. You did come here for a reason, didn’t you?”
“I did sir, and I would like to finish getting your perspectives on how you changed life for all that are here yet you can’t stand being here.”
“Alone, that’s where I see life now. It was when all became truth in my eyes, blinded by old hate. Dismissal of lies, humanity’s words that were bound by convoluted purpose. I just found food tasteless, water dry, even birds forgot how to sing in key around me. I decided to cover my ears in broken hopes, powerful walls built of rage wasted over in dismay. My perspective on how I changed life was long forgotten when it all became integrated with Dr. can eat my ass and his adjusted psychological studies in perusing harmony through heresy. Being who I am, and knowing what I was, are nothing of similarities. When I first began leaving those vultures you had not even been born yet. After my wife died, I knew they didn’t care about pushing boundaries. They wanted fountains of gold liquid to cover rotting tongues, soiled minds and whatever else could have been corrupted in my absence.
You want perspective? Think about what you fear to lose, and think about what is real… If you end up thinking everything you fear losing is in your real pile you might have to go back to bed for a few more days. You see me here, sad, maybe even miserable, but I am content with life. I know where it will go when I die, for me at least. I have no sense of loss anymore. I lost my only real love in life over petty things. I no longer am petty of those things. If one day I had found her again I am sure things would have been different, but as far as I know she has been long dead and forgotten all about me. Just remember one thing kid. Always cherish that which can be truly lost and fear not tomorrow of that loss. I am off to take an old man’s nap. But I hope this will help your newspaper sell some issues, from my frail pounds of issues.”
“Thank you sir for your time, but before I go… Take this envelope. My father gave it to me. He said I would know how to find you. That I could get close enough to you, since no one else really knew how to find you. It was from his mother’s will, my grandmother. If you love her as much as you feel you do, maybe this will bring closure to you. Just know these were her final words and they were to you…”
“…”