Searching for a Soul.
Eyes are the windows to the soul….
But what if you have no soul, what if the darkness within is so all-consuming as to dwarf all else in its magnitude? What would you see? Would you even care that you were soulless, or would you wander for eternity, searching the endless sands for the thing you missed?
I’ve met two men in my life who scared me, men who each stared at me with a gaze so haunting as to chill me deep within. I am not known as one to be easily shaken, but these men left me without doubt of what would happen if we were to clash – and all from a simple look. Both men were fighters of different backgrounds: one middle-aged, enormously muscled, trained in all manner of martial arts and self defense; the other short, wrinkled, and cold.
It was like each one saw every part of me with those eyes, every flaw and weakness, and to stand before either would see me destroyed within moments. This was something I knew.
Were these men, two individuals who had never met and likely never would, aware of their power, or were they merely so far down a road of violence that it had finally consumed them completely? I’ll never know. But the memory of those eyes helps keep me strong when I yearn to turn back to what I once was, because I have felt something akin to what they suffered pulse through me once or twice, and it terrified me with its intensity.
How could these men live with such emptiness inside? Each day rising without emotion merely to go through the actions of a day in a world they cared nothing about?
There are people like this out there, and if I have met two in my short span, imagine how many more tread the streets you walk each day. You send those you love out into a world capable of allowing such creatures to exist, not knowing if they will cross paths with someone who might choose to….
I try not to think about it.
The one thing that consoles me is the balance of the universe. For each Yin there is a Yang. And so for each of these soulless people there must be one who is more than just average, who has light shining so brightly from within them as to steady out the vacuum left by those without souls. We all know they exist out there, but all we see are the ones who are recognized throughout the world. What about the rest?
The mere fact humanity can possess either end of this vast spectrum within them gives rise to another question: Is this proof of a soul? Does the mere fact I have met such men as these prove to me that by them missing something that such a thing actually does exist? Or is it merely the mind’s reaction to a life encapsulated by violence and pain? Is it a protective measure to allow the body to continue on by closing off the one thing that makes life worth living?
These are things that keep me awake at times.
I do not know the answers yet, but a life searching for such a thing could surely not be a waste, could it?
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Short Story: The Echoes of Eternity
The cacophony of explosions became muted, fading away into the background of his consciousness as he sat, musing about his failures. Swallowing heavily, trying to suppress his fear, he attempted to push back the sounds of war. He failed.
Before arriving here, he’d thought war would be glorious, but now, resting in the mud, sixteen-year-old Alan realized he’d been a complete fool. He’d lied about his age to enlist, of course, reveling in the respect he’d seen in his friends’ eyes as he’d shipped out to ‘see the world’, as the recruiter had put it. He’d believed they would storm across Europe, smashing through the Kaiser’s troops like matchwood.
Yeah… matchwood. Right.
Nobody had pointed out the enemy had guns too, that they’d fight back, that they could kill. Nobody had said the reek of rotting bodies would keep him awake at night, the stench of men decomposing in their shallow graves wafting upon every breeze. In his nightmares they called to him, telling him to flee, but to where? He’d seen men blown to pieces by bombs similar to those echoing around him now, screaming as they tried to push their intestines back in and praying to God to save them. But nothing could save them; they were doomed.
Alan had long stopped crying over those who died, and just waited for his time to come, every day a nightmare, every night even worse. When would this all end?
A bomb landed particularly close to where he crouched and Alan jerked, covering his head as dirt showered down on him from the ground above, urine staining his pants but he didn’t care. A distant part of his mind knew he should be numb by now, but he couldn’t stop it. Hands shaking, he dropped his arms back down, brushing the dirt from his shoulders. The call would come soon, and they would rush up the ladders and over the trench wall toward the horizontal hail of lead death. Maybe this would be his time to die, to scream out for God to save him, to say it wasn’t his time, to curse –
A barked order sounded, cutting away his thoughts. The time was coming. The bombs had stopped.
Gripping his rifle with trembling hands, Alan snapped the long bayonet into place under its barrel, praying he wouldn’t need to use it, to see death up close. Standing on legs which threatened to collapse, he wondered how, despite having lost control only seconds ago, his bladder was bursting once more, and yet his mouth seemed so dry. Glancing left and right, he saw his terror mirrored on every young face, and he bit his lip so hard he tasted blood.
A ladder appeared before him, a whistle cut through the reeking air, and Alan’s heart stopped. Even so, he surged forward, his hands gripping the rungs of the ladder, his feet pushing him up from below despite his mental protestations. He screamed at his limbs to stop, but they refused, lurching clumsily over the rotting sandbags and dodging the rolls of razor wire, bullets zinging all around him.
The morning sun was rising directly behind him, casting a stretched shadow across the battlefield toward which he involuntarily dashed. This body was no longer his to control, he was merely a passenger along for a nightmarish ride. He tried to scream but his voice wouldn’t respond as his mutinous frame raised his rifle, firing before ducking low once more, again racing forward.
No! I don’t want to die!
But he had no choice, no power. Try as he might to stop, Alan – was that even his name? – kept running, reloading his rifle and firing, reloading again, his hands no longer shaking. The machine gun opposing them pounded like a slaughtering drum and several fell to its dance of death, but Alan sprinted on beyond his falling comrades, the enemy trench looming like the jaws of a beast into which he hurled himself, firing directly into the face of a German soldier before swinging around to –
The enemy bayonet skewered him through the stomach, and Alan stared at the cold steel now penetrating his body. His eyes traveled up the rifle, noting the buttons of the German uniform before reaching the face, finally resting on the cold eyes staring back at him. Something about those eyes looked familiar, as though he’d seen them before, and often. They were mocking and malicious, and Alan could tell the man killing him was enjoying the action, reveling in what he did, drinking in Alan’s death as another would sip fine wine.
He tried to pull away, but the man dragged him closer, keeping him pinned agonizingly to the bayonet, pleasuring in the screams emitting from Alan’s mouth. Those eyes, the face, everything about the man killing Alan seemed so known to him, but like a memory fading he just couldn’t place it.
A twist of the bayonet wrenched another scream from his lips and Alan almost fell, but was held upright by the cold murderer.
“LOOK AT ME!!!” roared the German, apparently incensed he’d closed his eyes.
And then, like a monster rising up from the depths of the ocean, the memory emerged, and his mind screamed silently, almost in time with the lips of the boy dying upon his bayonet.
His bayonet because they were his eyes. He was the cold man, the murderer.
The realization snapped him out of Alan’s body, slamming him into the frame of the German soldier, and he stared, horrorstruck, at the young boy pierced on the end of his rifle. Struggling to control the hands clasping the German rifle, he fought to remove the bayonet, but as with the body of Alan, he had no control; he was merely a spectator. He felt his own roaring elation as the boy’s death drew closer, and was sickened by it.
Finally, with excruciating finality, the dying boy shuddered, coughed, a spurt of blood spraying from his mouth, and then he dropped, Alan’s battle with death lost.
Fighting against the surging sensations of ecstasy his former self enjoyed at the demise of the young boy, he suffered his own defeat. He had no power here, no authority. He was being forced to witness his former sins and suffer for them. As the scene neared its conclusion, the realization came to him that this had happened many, many times before, and would continue for all eternity. He had killed young Alan, and had relished the evil of his action, and as such had condemned himself to forever repeat this moment, regardless of how much he now repented.
The scene faded as Alan’s body dropped to the mud like trash, and his former self contemptuously stepped over it, searching for another kill. Within moments, he found himself formless once more, floating above the scene of carnage, his remorse so utter that he wished nothing more than an end to it all. But it would never end, never stop.
This was his Hell, his punishment.
Something began to come into focus, a scene similar to the one he had just left, but somehow different. He saw a soldier, little more than a boy, sitting in a muddy trench, terror etched across his features as he clutched a rifle with whitened knuckles. He drifted closer.
The cacophony of explosions became muted, fading away into the background of his consciousness as he sat, musing about his failures. Swallowing heavily, trying to suppress his fear, he attempted to push back the sounds of war. He failed.
He always failed….
Copyright(C) 2011 Luke Romyn All Rights Reserved
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Short Story – THE COMFORT OF PAIN
There is a safety within the icy arms of sorrow, a frozen comfort which embraces the weak-willed and those yearning for the attention of fools who might feel sorry for them. These cowards huddle within their emotional pain and suckle upon the breast of remorse which feeds them, caring nothing for anyone but themselves as they waste their lives away, forever intent upon prolonging their emanation of grief.
A man stands within this circlet of safety, alone but at one with his pain. He cannot escape it even should he choose to, but he does not. A certain kind of pathetic joy suffuses this man every time the pitying eyes of another turn toward him, enshrouding his life with regret. He dwells in this place for years, content despite knowing he will never be happy again -
“Hey, you,” says a voice one night on the bus, rudely interrupting his morose contemplation. “Why the long face?”
At first he tries to ignore her, but she persists, intent on cracking his incorruptible walls.
“You know if you keep frowning like that the wind might change and you’ll be stuck that way.”
He sourly sneers at her attempts to charm him and turns his head away, gazing at the night-darkened passing countryside, but only seeing a dying world.
The seat beside him squeaks lightly as the stranger moves over to sit beside him, confounding him slightly but hardly ruffling his dour composure. He has seen down much stouter assaults than this during his fifty one winters of life, but her continued tenacity confuses him.
“I watch you every night on this crappy bus riding toward whatever crappy existence it is occupies your time and I can’t help but wonder what’s got you so down. Have you got a little pecker or something?”
The brutal effrontery of the question stuns the man and he turns to face her, but is struck dumb by the joviality alive within her hazel eyes. Momentarily his shield slips and he gazes at her in wonder.
So much like her.
He pushes down the memory and resumes snarling. “You have nothing to gain here, you grinning cow. Go back to where you were sitting and leave me alone.”
Expecting an end to the conversation, he turns back to the window to resume his bland contemplation of a world he despises. As such he is doubly surprised when bright peals of laughter arise from the woman, like a waterfall cascading over crystal glasses, and his breath catches slightly at the sound.
“You’re so funny, Howard.”
He snaps his head around so swiftly it audibly cracks, but that is as nothing compared to the shock of seeing an empty chair beside him. Frantically standing up, he stares around the bus, panic welling within him like a tsunami as he sees every seat is empty, the entire bus is his alone apart from the driver who stares at him oddly in the mirror above him.
Terrified he is losing his mind, the man frenetically searches every seat, looking beneath them all to find where the woman is hiding, but she is not there. Finally he moves to the front and confronts the driver.
“Where is she?”
“Who?” replies the driver, nonplussed.
“Don’t give me that crap. I’m talking about the woman who was just talking to me back there.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, buddy. You’re always the only one on here at night.”
He swallows heavily. Is he going crazy?
“Stop the bus. Let me off,” he orders.
“You sure?” says the driver.
“Are you deaf? I told you to let me off, you idiot.”
The bus screeches to a halt so suddenly the man stumbles and has to catch himself on the railing, throwing a glance at the driver before he disembarks, hoping the man picks up on the amount of malice he was trying to convey.
The bus zooms off behind him, covering him in a cloud of fumes and causing him to cough slightly whilst aggravating his mood at the same time. As the fumes clear the man stares around him, amazed he has emerged at what seems to be the only stop along the bus route with no substantial town around it, but he swallows down his surprise like it is a whole lemon and sourly stalks off into the night, silently cursing the bus driver for letting him get off in such a remote place.
Finally he comes to a cafe which is open, obviously awaiting the morning crowd, and enters before taking a seat at a table nearest the window. Ordering a sugarless black coffee from the waitress he stares out into the night, contemplating the event on the bus. No matter how he flips and turns it around in his mind he comes up with no answers.
“You’re never going to figure it out, you know,” says a voice beside him and his swiftly turns to see the strange woman there. “At least not while you’re staring outside. There are no answers out there, you have to look a bit closer.”
He controls the thudding of his heart with difficulty.
“Who are you?”
The woman laughs again and the thudding turns to fluttering at the oh-so-familiar sound.
“I’m just someone who is trying to help you,” she replies.
“I don’t need help, and even if I did I wouldn’t take it from a bitch like you.”
The snide response comes more as a reflex than anything else and he turns away as a new sensation fills him. It takes a while for him to figure out what it is because it has been so long since he has felt anything other than self-pity.
It is shame.
He expects the woman to laugh again as she did on the bus, and when she doesn’t he is surprised to realize he is experiencing a sense of loss as a result. Almost timidly he turns from the window to see she is no longer there.
Unlike the bus he does not search for her, knowing she will not be there. He drinks his black coffee in silence and contemplates what has been happening to him this night. Something odd, far beyond the ordinary, has been occurring, but he refuses to believe he is losing his mind; that is not an option. He has always been a man of logic, and searching within himself he surmises his mind is still intact.
Coming to no conclusion he pays for the coffee and leaves, ambling through streets without looking up, for once suffused with something other than thoughts of how terrible his life is.
“Howard!”
The voice echoes across the empty field and the man turns toward it, part of him unsurprised to see the woman sitting there alone, beckoning him to her. As odd as the scenario is, he cannot suppress his curiosity and steps onto the grass moist with early-morning dew, noting the brightening of the far horizon as he does so. Soon he reaches her side and she tells him to sit.
“What? And get my pants all messed up with dirt and stuff?”
Her laughter quells his arguments and he grudgingly sits, trying to ignore the damp of the grass seeping through the material of his pants.
“Why are you so angry all the time, Howard?”
“How do you know my name?” he snaps back. “Come to think of it, how the hell do you keep disappearing? Am I going crazy?”
She laughs and the odd urge to grin sneaks up on him, but he instantly suppresses it.
“I saw that, Howard,” she says. “You wanted to smile. You should, it’ll make you feel better.”
“Yeah, well maybe I don’t want to feel better.”
“Why would a person not want to feel better?” she asks quizzically. “What is there to gain by putting yourself through such sorrow each and every day?”
“What is there to feel so good about in this crappy world, anyway?” he counters. “You start doing stuff like that and you let down your guard, start feeling other emotions and such. Before you know it everything inside is exposed and open for attack. No thank you, I think I prefer the way I am just fine.”
“Who hurt you, Howard?”
And in that moment an unsurpassable urge overcomes him to disclose something to this strange woman which he has not spoken of in many years.
“You remind me of her, you know,” he says. Maybe that was why she disarmed him so easily; Beverly had always been able to do it too.
“Was she your wife?”
He nods, feeling a shifting of his shields as he does so.
“We were married for eighteen years.”
“Did she leave you?”
Another lurch inside him. “In a way.”
He stares out at the field, feeling his throat tighten slightly and his eyes begin to sting.
“Was she a terrible person?” she asks. “Did she do something horrible to you?”
He shakes his head roughly. “She was wonderful.”
“Then why are you so awful? Her life should have left a mark upon you, and if she was wonderful that mark should also be wonderful.”
“Don’t you see?” he snarls, turning back to her as the tears break loose of his hold. “This is what thinking about her does to me! It hurts. I hurt all the damn time. The only way I can stop it is by not feeling anything good, by not caring for or loving anything in this pathetic life. Truth is there’s nothing to care about without her anyway.”
“Why not?” she asks. “How can you look at that sunrise and tell me it isn’t beautiful?”
He turns to look. “Because it’s a sunrise she cannot share.”
The beast within him has torn his shields to pieces and he now has no defence. Emotions unfelt for years bombard him and he withers before the onslaught. Hunching forward he sobs unashamedly into his hands, tears which have been unshed since his wife lay dying, her body a husk as the cancer raged through it, but her eyes still twinkling whenever she saw him.
He had loved her without caution, and that had been his undoing. When she had finally gone there was barely anything left of him, and so he had curled up what remained and hidden it deep within, not even going to visit her grave, never even knowing where it was after her sister had buried her. He had convinced himself he never cared in order to protect his soul, but it had destroyed him instead.
And now, as everything he had kept protected for so long unravels within him, he realizes he has been wrong. By denying that part of himself he has denied the best part of his wife, and to do that is like proclaiming he never loved her at all. And he had loved her, more than anything else this world ever had to offer, as she had loved him, but in order for her love to live on he needs to release it back out into the world, not keep it caged like some diseased rat, festering in the ill of his resentment.
The tears fall forever, and each one drips away a piece of the coldness which had encompassed his heart for all these years. The wounds which he has never properly tended to finally lay raw before him, but he knows now that one day they will heal if he keeps himself whole, not hides the best of what makes him human.
Finally his crying ebbs, and he feels the warmth of the sun on his head, lifts his face toward it and smiles before turning to give thanks to the woman who has shown him the way back from despair. She is not there, just as he suspected she wouldn’t be, but in her place is a vertical stone. Curious, he glances around and sees the field he is in is full of such stones, all of different sizes and shapes, but each facing toward the sunrise.
A cemetery.
His heart flutters as he rises to his feet and moves around to read the epitaph on the stone he has never before had the courage to know the location of, knowing it will read the name of Beverly Francis Weston –
His wife.
He finally understands the riddle, and smiles his thanks for her final gift to him.
Copyright © 2011 Luke Romyn – All rights reserved.
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