11/15/2018
The night is dark and cold. Winter has been long and an old man sits at his rocking chair with a blanket over his legs. His hair and beard are long and unkept. The wrinkles on his face bare the markings of a life of stress and regret.
He looks out the window at the darkness but only sees his own reflection illuminated by the flames from the fireplace. He is dying. He contemplates on all the love he cast aside in his life as the loneliness of death settles in. He breaks the silence of the room as he confesses to his reflection.
His is that wretched heart. Devoid of all love and all happiness. Now, he will watch and listen, as the hours slowly creep by and the crows gather soon in the morning light outside the window at the ready, almost intently, to mourn the loss of a soul soon to be forgotten by man and God alike.
There once was a life lived in color, full of hope, and longing for even brighter days. But darkness always follows the heart of one searching for the love of a family denied, all the while ignoring the family growing up around his very eyes.
Death may seem as an eternal prison for some. For others a wide new world opening as their eyes are forever closing. The wretched heart thinks of neither, only the serenity of the quiet darkness. Only the forgetting of a much unremarkable life.
One may wonder what the eyes see and what the ears hear of a wretched heart as if those things, so cherished, could be carried away and not turned to ashes in the fire but escaping like embers, seemingly floating up to the heavens in the night sky.
There were a few hearts who cozied up to his. With open arms welcoming and giving comfort from the cold into the warmth of their loving embraces. Rarely are they forgotten but only after their love has been pushed aside. Or worst, forgetting to nurture the love and then wonder why it’s dying as it withers before his very eyes.
How do we honor the wretched heart? How do we make sense of the darkness in one’s life. Is there a trade-off of honesty for one fleeting moment? Less we grieve for the wretched soul as we mourn for what others have lost. Those who’s love would be so purposely and carelessly obscured from his life only to be replace with a sense of pity and self-loathing loneliness.
I will pour a brandy and sit by the fireplace tonight and raise a glass to you old friend and then I will look at you no more. Such frailty and neglect deserves not ever to see the light of one’s own reflection ever again.
Thomas Michael Pico
Icarus Wave Publishing ©
Icarus Wave Publishing 