Hergest Ridge

 
“At last, when you free the marionette from its strings it’ll lie lifeless before you, for that which binds it is also its life source. And if you’re truly a great man you will breathe life back into it, inspire it to live a life of its own – for freedom without inspiration is the worst kind of death.”

When I was a child, I’ve cut up a picture into a puzzle. When that was done, I reassembled the pieces, and then cut them into ever smaller bits for a tougher challenge. My father warned me that the pieces I’m making will be too small to be ever put together again.

I tried long and hard but never did manage to prove him wrong.

Father never did have any words of wisdom that stuck, and in that way he remains a hollow being. But as I look around me, I’m struck by a notion that perhaps I’m again cutting things into pieces too small to ever form a proper whole – only this time I’m cutting apart my essence.

Winston, I want you to understand something. You’ve made a mistake, there is no denying that any way we look at it. But as undeniable as the mistake is, there is something even bigger to consider.

Making mistakes is part of being human. Christ, even a robot eventually breaks down and things go wrong. But we humans, we make mistakes all the time.

I need your heart to stay open. I need you to fight to keep it open at all cost, because if it shuts, the bond that we use to nourish each other will begin to decay. Every painful memory we’ve gone through until now as a result of your actions will seem like a minor infraction when a much higher level of suffering creeps into our lives.

Please, don’t give up on us out of fear that our trust is somehow forever broken. The things you’ve proven to me since that awful day are things you could not have proven if you didn’t screw up. You fought long and hard, and I’ve forgiven you a long time ago. But this, us… it’s not going to work if you don’t forgive yourself. I need you to forgive yourself so we can once and for all put this behind us.

I don’t want to look back at what was, and what could have been. I need you to hold my hand, and look forward with me. There is nothing in the past for us to live off. Our life lies ahead, and you’re the one I want to experience it with.

Look it up in the Urban Dictionary – do with it what you will.

The Devil is in the details, but then so is God. Fortunately, neither God nor the Devil probably exist.

I’ve so much to express, but no prism to focus any of it. The time has come to write a eulogy of sorts, as all I can see is my own self staring back at me; On the surface, cold, expressionless, unmoved – just the way I aspired to be for so long. Birth is a bitch. So is rebirth. We enter our daily lives with death on our heels, its fangs and claws pulling us under every step of the way.

I read once on an online profile someone’s description of self: “melancholic, not in a pessimistic, but stoic way.” Today, I am borrowing the description for my own purposes. I say borrowing, for I’ve the utmost intent to return or pass it on to the next person that may find it fitting.