Thanks For The Memories

The anguished Winter rain beats upon the window panes with an insistence that will not be denied. Behind the lamenting torrent is a wash of grey that paints the view into something it was never meant to be. There was a time when he would see beyond that grey. That time is now long past. There was once a hopefulness that he had always thought resided within the land itself. Now he realises that it was him all along. He wishes he could look away, but his eyes are locked upon that place that exists beyond everything. They drift and drift, taking him away from himself. Drawing him deeper into himself.

He finds that this happens more and more. Carried along like flotsam on the tides of inevitable change. The seasons no longer circle in a recognisable repetition. There is only the winding down. A sense of an ending that has no definition. An unsatisfactory resolution to a problem he never found the wherewithal to define.

The problem is him. He made it that way. Chose to step into the breach in favour of living the life that was presented to him. An existence of tortured self-indulgence. Escapism via a focus on his lack. The gifted shortfall of worth that is as infectious as a fleeting smile. The legacy every single one of us glibly passes down to the next generation. The poison chalice securing a continuing fall from grace as the new born falls from the safe perfection of the womb-world into an angry storm of confusion and chaos.

Eventually, he withdraws from the place between dreams and reality. There is a decision to be made. Always there are choices. Life is a conveyor belt of unwanted and unloved responsibility. He grasps at the mundanity of liquid refreshment. Knowing he will eschew the delightful aroma of coffee for the familiar comfort of tea. The call to arms of coffee has become too much for him. Tea is a gentle, uncomplicated friend. He avoids acknowledgement of the regression this simple choice represents. Avoidance is a habit that has become a part of who he is.

Once the clumsy tea ritual is completed he withdraws to the table. The nearby armchair promises peace and relaxation, but he is aware enough to know that there will be none of that. Not for him. Not now. Not ever. He hunches over the kitchen table as though in prayer. Gazing down upon the muddy surface of the tea, he is transported yet again from this place and thrust back into the fantasy of what once was. Drawn back from himself and catapulted forth into a sea of burning emotions, he fills his mug with tears of sorrow.

He used to think that losing his memories would be the worst part of it. It’s far worse than that. His memories are untethered now. Punishing him as they run free in his mind. Where there was once some semblance of order, there is now a kaleidoscope of chaos. His future was a plan to be fulfilled. There was a zest for life. A hunger to consume time savagely and in the process become obese with a confusion of recollections. He once had a direction and he kept on moving towards whatever it was he had thought was important. Now that illusion has been washed away by the incessant rains of time, and there is only the approaching grey. Always the grey.

And the grey keeps closing in. His hopes and dreams were the first to bolt. He did not understand they were gone from him until it was too late. The loss. Always the fierce and angry loss. There is a blind panic to the way his memories encircle him. He glances at the mute radio. There was a time when he would turn it on full blast to disperse the ghosts that threatened to haunt him. Now the music can only summon more unsettled and vengeful spirits. Now ghosts are all he has. For memories are a comfortable fiction until the walls of falsehood begin to tumble down. Snapshot after snapshot of what might have been, but never was.

The grey paints his memories with the stark reality of his life. Transfixed, he sees that life pass before him and all he can do is sit in grief-stricken judgement of himself. He prays for the blessed relief of the loss of memory. The collapse of his civilisation and return to nature. He knows that his time is done here, but still he lingers on, for this is the price that must be paid.

She is gone and so are their children. His friends passed a long time ago. He endures despite the impermanence of this life. Endures and finally faces the truth when there is nothing else left to him. No hiding from the reality that he was never really here. Never sufficiently present for himself or any of those he professed to love. Going through the motions and hoping he would not be found out. Placing his palms against his eyes in the pretence of hiding. A delightfully cheeky act in a small child. The worst of betrayals when an adult refuses to see those they love for who they truly are. Hiding from them and casting them adrift in the storms of a cruel world.

He feels the loss of their light and their warmth acutely. Sees them now that they are long gone from this life. The lesson is learnt too late. He doubts that it is better late than never. There is no real learning from this. No purpose left to his existence. Only more pain in the knowing.

Deconstructing himself in this manner is a return to his originating pain and all the hurt that has grown from it since. That is the grey. The dimming of the light with a smothering of dread mediocrity.

His tea is as cold as his derelict heart when he comes back to what was once himself. He pads to the sink and pours it away. As the kettle comes to the boil he watches a single tear of rain desperately clinging to the window until his focus softens and he is drawn away once more. Another spiral down towards an uncertain and fearful end.

And the kaleidoscope of his memories keeps on turning until they become a blur of grey that calls him away from the life he so desperately clung onto like that falling tear of rain. He’s held on until there is nothing left for him here other than the fear of what lies beyond the impenetrable veil. The feeling of unfinished business was the desperate denial of letting go. And when his hold slips and he experiences the fall of release, he is free and he shines as bright as the day he came into this world. He is restored to the worth he always had but was taught to deny.

Memories lost, he is whole once more.