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There’s a secret sadness behind those eyes— a secret longing deep within. The flash of a smile born of a face soon forgotten. The scent of a memory on a well-trod by-way. That lingering woe in the starless night, that ancient aching that no man can express.
You only have to get the call once in your life for the rest of it to be damaged- and blessed is he to whom it comes late in life, that he might still cling to his essence with so few years to travel in a ruptured hull, every day losing a bit more of himself to the passing wind.
It was your mother, your father, perhaps a stranger. A false calm at first, and then the sinking:
“When did you last hear from him?”
Your response… “Why?”
“He’s dead.”
Your entire life has to reset. Surely this was never supposed to happen. You recall your last interaction, your last talk—your last snub. You hated him, perhaps.
But that is irrelevant. He’s gone. In a twinkling, decaying for days before the call is even made.
Despite your better judgment, you mourn. You bear up the pall, and you recall a far off time unremembered that the hull was first struck long ago, and that this is merely the breaking point.
You listen to the sorries, and you try not to scoff. How well do you know your own face? Can they tell what hides behind your eyes?
“Good guy.”
“Wonderful person.”
“My ass.” Your opinion.
You wonder if there’s hope for Heaven now, because you cannot judge a soul, but know the man’s fruits and how the Chaplain’s assurances of harps and halos are sweet-hearted lies uttered to soothe the ragged hearts of those who have not dared to gaze into eternity.
You move on. You all lingered long at the charnel house, but the spring brought new life and forgetfulness. When was the last time you went back to lay flowers upon that stone?
You sometimes awaken to sadness as you realize that your dreams were but life anew, reborn into awakening as a thoughtless child in those strange hinterlands on the banks of Morpheus. The awakening brings with it heartbreak reborn.
As grass grows upon the grave, you forget.
A forgotten face flashes behind the mirror’s glass. For but a second you see it— what everyone else saw in your blindness.
“They took us for brothers. Always for brothers.”
The second is gone.
A voice calls out in the night and the ghost returns. Yet, as your perspiration dries cold upon your brow you realize the voice was naught but your own.
The days go by,
Years pass away–
And the ghost still haunts your mirror pane.
And somewhere past the end of days,
The grass still grows upon the grave.
You forget, and for a time, things are good.
But another call in the early hours, bids you dance once more.
This time was expected, yet your tears are more real because of it.
This time you mourn in truth, no pall here to bear.
This time the memories are precious, though even now the Chaplain spins a yarn; more truthful now it seems: because you still cannot judge a soul, but can see its fruits. Here, the fruits were ripened and precious at their lips. Ah, well, there is hope in Heaven here—might you bear up your own standard before the throne of Judgment?
You drink. That’s better.
You toss a rose into the dirt. The gravediggers kill their cigarettes to seal the vault. You’ve been here before, and there it is:
The grass has grown, and the ground has sunk from the decay beneath it. The marble headstone is broken in two and lined with moss. No roses here.
No one remembered.
Nor did you.
The days go by,
Years pass away–
And the ghost still haunts your mirror pane.
The dreams don’t come often anymore.
They don’t need to.
It occurs to you, at times, that his final night on Earth may well have resembled one of your average weeknights now. That ghost lingers longer within its crystal prison.
Might you bear up your own standard? Might you dare, even for a moment?
Each waking comes with the knowledge that such reckoning is a little longer deferred, but one day closer. Perhaps today is the day that you might exorcise yourself.
The days go by,
Years pass away–
Grass now grows upon two lonely graves.
Another call, this one Divine, and slowly you see your own face behind the glass again. Somedays you hear chains rattle, some nights that voice which is your own cries out—but you no longer fear bearing up your standard.
You have traded it for another—a white flag. And you know that reckoning is ever closer, but what a joy it will be now!
For with each waking comes a curse, for that hull is still ruptured, though better patched now than in years past.
Yet you tense whenever the telephone rings.
Another iceberg to your heart—then such relief when the alarm is false. It usually is.
But you know—you know this world is passing away. You know that, soon enough, the alarm will ring true, and then you will be one ghost older, even as your heart cries to break from this damnable mortal coil.
Yet the world spins on
And passes away–
For now, the grass grows upon the graves.