storm

The storm clouds close in around him quickly, and without warning. As the warm winds begin to howl around him and the driving rain pelts his face, he laughs at his own naiveté for not seeing it coming all along. After all this time, he says to himself, and you still can't see it coming...can't feel the change in the air pressure, can't hear the silence as the beasts of the sea, land, air, and your own mind take refuge from the gathering thunderheads. No, only yourself, standing here alone in the rain, oblivious to all. It is almost as if he enjoys these times....he laughs again....a short, bitter laugh, but not without a touch of warmth...of course he welcomes them, for they are his storms, of his own creation...and without them he fears he would cease to be. Not cease to exist, just cease to be; which is a far crueler fate....

He has heard it said many times that too much introspection is a luxury ill afforded by those who wish to live the productive life. Perhaps that's why he feels as though he's never finished a damn thing. Long ago he accepted who he was, and whoever he would become, but when the storm rages, the resolve becomes weak, and the doubts whirl around, picking up whatever isn't firmly tied down...spinning it through the air and dropping it without warning or regard. Stepping outside, mind empty save the thought of if he's got enough in his pocket for a pack of smokes and a cigar or two. He closes the door behind him, walks down the steps from the porch, walks across the small, soggy bit of crabgrass that passes for a lawn. He stops dead in his tracks, at the same moment that his heart skips one beat....then two and three....finally starting up again, if only because that's the only thing it can think of to do next. It was a breeze that stopped him, and a silence he has heard before. The night is cold and crisp and very quiet. He cannot see the moon, but a few long, wispy clouds glow like silvery gossamer. He has been here before, this moment in time is meant for him and for him alone. The cold, crisp nights of thirty winters flood his entire being simultaneously, each feeling, each bit of memory and emotion clamoring for his attention, wanting to be picked up gently and examined and felt all over again...to be reclaimed by its owner, as though not a moment had passed since its creation.

But he cannot touch them all, for they are too many, and they fly before his eyes faster than he can reach out for them, and their passing leaves him feeling cold and alone. Yet they blow around him still, like the ghosts of old friends who have died...if not in the body, then in the heart, which is the hardest parting to bear. He wants to touch these hidden dreams, rekindle these lost loves, laugh again with the fire of one who has nothing to lose....but it hurts too much. To live again in these moments and feel the sting of realization that they are just shadows of maybes that never came to pass, would stab straight through him, extinguishing the flickering flames of hope and dream that still burn within him. He cannot allow the grim wraiths of dreams unfulfilled to smother the infant dreams yet to be while they sleep in the cradle of his heart. No, just to feel them around him, and to be reminded of their presence....that they will never go away is enough...they have made their point all too clearly.

He drives through the cold night, almost alone on the road. He passes store after store, shuttered and closed against the darkness. The radio plays, but he doesn't hear the songs it sings to him. His thoughts are somewhere else, and his gaze drifts to the skies.

He smiles...a real smile from the heart..the kind that comes from the realization that one isn't nearly as clever as one thought. Perhaps this is what it means to become wiser with age, to recognize the fool you have been and the fool you will be still...

He comes to a store, has enough for a pack of smokes and a couple of cheap cigars which will probably go unsmoked. He drives homeward, mind now empty of thoughts...simply driving. As he nears his house, a song comes on the radio, it is a song that stirs him....he turns the volume full up, steps on the gas, and roars past his house, his car an extension of him....leaping forward with excitement. He drives very fast, singing along with the radio, beating out a rhythm on the steering wheel...and for a brief moment he is free. And for now, that moment is enough to keep him going until the next.

The song over, he turns the car around and slowly drives home. He goes into the house, and finds his worn copy of Tennyson, opens it to Ulysses automatically. He reads the words and is reminded that some dreams can never fade. He reads, and again knows himself.

Ulysses