A Broken Stream
My tribute to Edgar Allan Poe
Failure: - whether Apparent or not, Evident or not, True or not. Hurts. To work with a single minded devotion to achieve his goal, a thing for which he craves from the bottom of his heart. The thing which in his eyes defines him. He gives his level best, but still falling short of the target is not a thing easy to handle.
Just to see someone else climb the pedestal of triumph, with knowledge of the fact that he himself failed, feels as if an arrow pierces his heart, blinding one’s eyes with the sheer pain. Fortunately, sanity prevails, the realization dawns that whatever he is feeling is not right. A split second later, he claps along with the rest, for the moment his own aspirations recede from his thoughts, into the many corners of his convoluted mind.
If this was a fairy tale, and emotions predictable, I would stop here, but for the first time I am sorry that the story hasn’t ended.
Finally, when he is alone, constant fear gnaws at his heart, grief fills his mind, torturing the very soul. It brings to mind the fatal phrase, the root of all mischief “WHY ME??”
In the silence of darkness, panic grips him. His life has no meaning, his thoughts no direction, his own words seem hollow and worthless. He wants to run away, to take a drill machine and tear away these malignant tumors from his mind. Through the pain he does not wish to regain consciousness, he just wishes for it to end; no matter what the cost. At this point of time, nothing else matters, only relief from this excruciating pain. Family, friends, life, everything…nothing. There is only a growing sense of urgency. An urge to kill, to die.
As this burden of failure slowly brings him to his knees, he sinks into the bottomless pit of self-destruction. The pitch blackness overwhelms the glow of every positive thought, everything fades into the background. He feels as if naked, stripped of all dignity, wriggling worthlessly like some primordial creature. He opens his mouth to scream. To scream as the souls who are burnt in Tartarus for all eternity would, but his throat chokes. No words, only short gasps, like someone’s last breaths escape him. Slowly, very slowly, he sinks deeper into this black pit of failure. His eyes go black as if someone has pulled shutters over them. There is a continuous ringing in his ears like an annoying bee he would like to swat away. His own senses overpower him, dragging him deeper into the void.
Desperately, he searches for the escape hatch, he knows it’s there. He knows it, just isn’t able to find it. Desperately, he searches for an outlet, but he only clutches thin air. As his desperation builds so does his speed as he falls down the dreaded pit.
He doesn’t know what to do. What CAN he do??
His fall is suddenly broken by something cold. Fluid and yet unrelenting, before a sense of relief can come to his tortured soul, the fluid begins to rise. It just doesn’t rise about him, it flows into him through every nerve on his body. It’s pure unadulterated, exquisite pain. His mind goes into shock, reeling as if from an overdose. Slowly, similar to the curtains being raised for a horrific play, he registers the pain his nerves are yelling at him to feel. He still feels apart, like a spectator watching in horrified fascination. He could even clap if he wanted to. Suddenly, the pain rises to his throat, choking him. He tries to bring his arms to his neck as a reflex. However, with the fuse of his senses blown, he grows disoriented. The world about him begins to blur in its black and black forms.
His own limbs betray him, they refuse to follow the commands of his brain. It’s as if a puppeteer, much greater than himself, has taken over his strings. HE is there controlling him. He is simultaneously glad to be along and chilled to the bone to be without company. He holds his breath, trying to live through just this one moment. Slowly his agony magnifies, but he lets go. He lets go, and finds that he doesn’t float. Nothing goes away, everything just intensifies. Somehow, he manages to get up from the chair, managing to escape from his bonds. He stumbles over to the bed. He goes under, and then there is silence.
He closes his eyes. Tears do not come to him, only terrifying dreams of a starker reality. He begins to tremble, goose bumps rising on his skin. This is the time, the agnostic remembers God. He feels a hand clutch his heart, squeezing it tighter and tighter, almost as if to expel the pain. He can’t breathe or even think. Just the pain of it is enough to kill him. His struggles begin to cease. The pain does not stop, only submission begins. His eyelids drop, agonizingly slow. His breathing slows to a halt. Even when he is in harsh bright light, a calmer light darkness takes him. He breaches the boundary of the world of blissful freedom, the dreamless chasm of senselessness. Only now, his senses subside, the fear and pain finally releasing him and receding from his body. His mind soars through the valley. He never looks back to the stormy horizon disappearing behind him on the horizon.
He is once again free. He thinks once more.
He is.
