This is a short story, about a man in a chair looking back on his life.
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As I sit here, and look out at this barren landscape, I realise how much I’ve missed out on. My sheer naiveté of other people, of feelings, of myself…Of love… has left me dejected and lonesome, but while I was growing up, I considered intimacy a bad thing; a foolish move, I believed that being close to someone was weakness.
I see now how stupid I was, as the days went on, then weeks, then months, then years. I saw one by one, my friends, of whom I was never more than an occasional “drinking buddy”, fall in love, and be happy…I never believed in love…I only saw it as mere lust and jealously, and the fear of being alone.
I see now how stupid I was, how selfish I was. As people who I thought only cared about me, because they thought it was the “right thing to do”, or out of boredom, turned against me, and started avoiding me, that was when that whole in this thing I never understood began. And the pain was just unbearable, whenever that hole opened, it would stay open, and never close.
I see now, they genuinely cared for me, maybe even loved me…My own fear pushed them away, pushed me away…I thought this was best for them, maybe it was…Maybe I’ll never know, but I know now it certainly wasn’t best for me…When I realised they cared for me, sincerely, the hole in that place tore even more, and once again I felt that unbearable pain.
I see now that my family did want what was best for me, and my arrogance, my sheer unbearable arrogance pushed them away, and caused them to despise me, to openly say I wasn’t a family member, I thought once again, that this was good for them, good for me. And I see now that for a while it was good for me, and whenever my mother tried to tell me how much she loved me before she died, and my selfishness refused to believe it, to believe her, it made me feel good, but when she died, knowing I didn’t love her, it once again tore that place I can’t describe, and this time the pain was worse than both times before, this once was sheer agony, a crescendo of pain.
I see now, that this was the point in my life, were I secretly knew I was doomed to be lonely, and I tried to move on in my life. I moved onto the streets of the city, I drunk, I snorted, I injected, I did everything, I slept with a different hooker every night, but it never made me happy, it made me feel even more empty, it ripped that place almost in two, with nothing but a thread hanging on, a voice was begging me to stop; I wouldn’t listen. No, this was my path. I was forced to walk this path, at the time I blamed my upbringing…Now I blame myself.
I see now that with this revelation of my past mistakes, that this tore that place, and left it barren and utterly irreversible. I see now that this barren landscape that I am staring into…Is…Or perhaps more applicable…was…my heart…
