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"It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one." George Harrison (1943 - 2001)
*** I've gotten into a bad habit of only writing when I'm bored. I caught myself reminiscing over days past and this was the result... *** Eventually, if you mishandle something enough, you're going to lose it. It's funny. At times, it's like a train that you can see coming a mile away and yet as it slowly grinds towards you, blaring its horn, all you can do is sit and watch as it comes. Waiting... Until it crushes you. The parallels of life. When we were children, watching the damsel in distress tied to the train track - little did we know just how true that was going to be. Just how personal it was. We weren't looking at a joke. We were staring a parody of life right in the face. We were just too young to know it. It should have been easy to write. The pain was there. He'd caused so much. The stark reality of what he'd done had slowly begun to set in. It wasn't a game. Well, maybe in terms of the fact that someone had to lose. In this case, lives had been shattered, dreams destroyed, all through his will. There was nothing that would dispel the sickening shift in his stomach that he felt as he sat mere inches away from a life that he'd pledged so long to protect. Strangely ironic that he probably couldn't have done a better job of ripping it apart if he'd planned it from the outset. It was as if he was looking at someone who'd just fallen off a mountain. Close enough to reach out and grab, yet all he could do was watch as she fell away, plaintively looking at him with eyes of saddened disbelief; silently pleading for him - "Why didn't you catch me?" Even as she fell away, well past his reach - she stared back with begging eyes, praying to feel the arms that had saved her a million times before, nestle in to the small of her back and across her shoulders and gently stop her downward spiral. She was going to die... Figuratively. He could still save her; he knew that no matter how far she fell, she would never clear his reach... But he knew that he wouldn't. Silently, it struck him how she seemed to drop forever... It was as if there was no end to the chasm that he'd pushed her into. Yet, she was never out of his sight. Nor would she be. Somewhere, she would live, a whisper away from his ear, and yet a lifetime removed from his presence. The death of an innocent. Truly, there is no greater tragedy. What was there left to say? The thought gained legs and no sooner did the query make its way from his lips, did he feel the words hang heavy in the air. There was no taking it back. The divide which all of two seconds ago could have been bridged by the mere reach of an arm - became a chasm. The damage, borne by years of neglect, had taken the toll it had so long threatened. The bond, long since a fractured thing, had been broken. Their shared awkward silence served as a seal. He could feel the passing of six years of love and devotion (or at least the naive intent of such) give way to the pain of the betrayed. It was no mystery who the guilty party was. He felt his insides churn as her voice tore at him. Not in anger, but unabated sorrow, full of invisible tears that her eyes could only dream of reproducing. The urge to reach out and right this monumental wrong invaded every fiber of his being. Yet, his arms were doomed to be bound by the sense on loss in her eyes. The comfort swallowed by the bitterness that remained. He was supposed to always have been there. He was supposed to be different. In him she had gambled (with the recklessness of unconditional love), lay the fertile ground reaped by years of betrayal by those who planted only seeds of destruction. His was the walk of heroes, the strength of faith, the aura of innocence, and the unabashed desire to stand beside her forever. All had crumbled in time, under the weight of her expectations and his shortcomings.
*** Memories of a train ride up north... Some of my best writing has taken place with me on an Amtrak Regional, absentmindedly staring out the window.*** It was a wonder why he even subjected himself to such torture. The glasses that sat astride his face were little more than a week old, and yet he was already straining to make out objects that might have been easier to see had he not put them on at all. He glanced quickly at the time. It would be three hours still before the train would pull into Penn Station. Three long hours... As he felt the dull throb of hunger, he knew that he would never make it there without getting something to eat. The thought of abandoning his seat on the train was not that inviting, coupled with the fact that he already had taken up a good amount of space - gave him pause. He was leery of adding a plate of food to the mix. It was coming out smoothly, but it didn't sing to him. There was nothing in the words that reeked of the innate poetry he was so desperately trying to tap into. He wasn't sure of the cause... Pausing slowly and cracking his fingers for effect, he looked outside. It was a beautiful time of year to take the train. The winter months were almost upon the northeast corridor the express was due to navigate. He could no longer feel the winds, that at one point had threatened to lift him skyward when a lack of direction forced him to venture out into the gale. It was coming a little easier now. He fought against the basic instinct to walk fifteen feet to the cafe car and quell the dull, heavy feeling in his head. He knew the signs. If he did not eat soon, he would be the recipient of a splitting headache. The reasons were twofold for him not to try and dispel the coming storm lying in wait, right between his eyes. He was being buffeted by odors whose true origin escaped him, aside from their strength and sweetness. He sat in silence as the train lurched uneasily out of the station. As the cool, sweet, artificial air wisped around him, it came to his attention that this was going to be the most peaceful part of his weekend. The sun had almost completely finished its slow fade to the west as they emerged from underground. Some of the taller buildings were painted with a burgundy orange reflection courtesy of the setting sun. The regional train kept a slow pace indicative of the lazy feeling adopted by those sitting in its seats. The self same people who had been scrambling around madly scant minutes before - more concerned about their frantic quest to secure a seat with an empty chair beside it, than the basic need to simply make the 7:55 southbound. He quietly wondered what the three hours would bring... He sat slightly drained by the events of the day. Even as his temperature dropped, he was keenly aware of the fact that the since dried sweat on his body had not really gone anywhere. He'd slipped away to the cramped bathroom minutes after securing prime seating himself, to change out of a pair of shirts that had fallen victim to the extremely humid eighty-eight degree weather - compounded by four hours in a car with no air conditioning and four more exploring an amusement park - experiencing everything from roller coasters to freeze-dried ice cream. Part of him sat gladly that despite his late arrival on the train he'd found the type of seat that he'd longed for, however the incessant chatting of a woman on a cell phone behind him slightly robbed him of the bliss he craved. Inwardly he found it odd that the woman cried on and on about her displeasure of being trapped around her family all weekend for a reunion, yet apparently had no desire to enjoy the newfound solitude she'd gained as he looked at his watch and found that more than a half an hour later - she was still going strong. It was a mystery to him that he could find people so engaging and annoying at the same time. In fact, earlier that day, he'd given more credence to the realization that he might always walk the tightrope of loving his fellow man and hating them. If only there were a middle ground betwixt the two... It was hard on him, switching from socialite to sociopath. That being said, a small part of him loved that fact that he was so in tune to the latter and despite the occasional lapse - never lost the ability to emotionally detach himself from any situation. It had served him well throughout his life, although a case could be made that it was his biggest weakness as well. The train picked up speed as it closed in on Trenton... In that moment, he understood that in his own life he was coming to a junction in the tracks - so to speak - where he was going to be forced to choose a course that would greatly alter the direction of at least two people's lives. Though the choice had sat plaintively in front of him for some time now, He'd refrained from making a decision... Soon, that would no longer be the case. The early portion of the day was in itself a spectacular beginning. The only problem was the choice of succumbing to the music or throwing himself into his writing. He could not be true to them both.
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