Quicksand Mind

The photo is mine. I know this, but I cannot say why I know it. There are not the words, only a feeling that provides me with a reassuring certainty. I have to focus in a way I never used to, or at least I don’t think I did. I focus hard and another piece is provided for the puzzle before me. A piece that will fade soon enough. My existence here is temporary and I have lost the ability to make anything stick. Maybe I never had that ability, only an illusion provided by a heady cocktail of cock-sure arrogance and the ignorance that accompanied it.

I am in the photo.

The taller of the two individuals captured in this shot is me. To my shame, I glance in the mirror. I do not trust that feeling of mine that masquerades as certainty. Trust is hard to come by these days. I have been betrayed by my own self far too often to trust in trust any longer. To make matters worse, I turn the photo over and read my own handwriting; Tenby 2011.

Pulling a dining room chair away from the table, I sit down heavily and regret the nature of my movements. It hurts. And I already hurt far too much. Hurt is all I seem to do these days. I’m banking hurt like I’ll need it for a rainy day. It doesn’t make sense, but then nothing does anymore. I doubt it ever did.

My position from the dining table is regrettable. Regret is another resource that I use. I sit uncomfortably distant from the table and I know it is very likely that I will not do anything to make my situation better. I would call that giving up, but it isn’t. I have precious little to give up now. Maybe it’s acceptance. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing. Besides, acceptance won’t make a jot of difference. It’s supposed to, I know that much. I think I’d rather put acceptance to one side for now. I doubt I’ll ever accept this. 

The photo is point in case.

You see, I took the photo. That’s what the angry man told me before he stormed out of the room and out of this house, a house that was a home which has now become a prison of sorts. I’ve no reason not to believe him. His certainty rode in on a wave of bilious rage. The passion that rose up in him hurt. It hurt my heart and I don’t know why that should be, and that failure to join the dots pains me all the more. His righteous indignation humbled me and stilled my confusion in a moment that promised clarity, but never delivered anything that I could see beyond the mists of my pain.

Even as my heart was wounded, it went out to that man and I wanted to say something. I wanted to reach out to him. But even my arms abandoned me, staying motionless at my sides as I worked my mouth up and down in a vacuum that threatened to crush my chest and send me in a downward spiral into a tired gloom that has absolutely no interest in my plight.

I turn the photo back around and stare into it with an intensity that should send me through the glossy surface and onto the dirty brown beach. I know that if I were to succeed, the colour of those sands would be much lighter and a lot more inviting. I can feel the texture of that sand on the soles of my feet and I remember the sensation of sand between my toes. That conflicting feeling that is glorious in its initial throes, but is soon tired of. The lapping tide in the background of the photo beckons me forth. The undulation of the waters seductively pulling me out into the ocean with murderous intent. A return to the place where all life started. An end to the beginning.

A droplet of liquid lands on the photo. My attention is drawn from the mysteries of the picture to a new puzzle. Thoughtlessly, I rub at my nose, but there is no sign of moisture there. A second drop lands on the glossy surface of the captured moment.

I let go of the photo and drop my face into my hands. I almost miss, but I don’t care about my clumsiness, already giving myself over to my tears. A waterfall through which my mind steps. I shiver in the chill of the cleansing waters as I solve the puzzle of the photo.

The solution I am presented with is not what the photo portrays, nor the meaning that it captured at the time it was taken. Instead, I am presented with the reflection in the glossy surface of the photo. I see my life and what little remains of it. That life is fractured. I am falling apart and in that dereliction, in the yawning gaps, I see Death reaching out towards me, but he is in no rush to take me from this place. Instead we are locked in a battle that I can never win and he is punishing me. For what, I do not know. I fear Death took the memory of that awful transgression first, so the joke is on me. I am the butt of Death’s callous joke and I don’t think I’ll ever understand the cruel punchline.

Death has more than one face. We reject Death in all of his guises, even when he visits us in the most direct of ways. After the final breath has escaped the body of a loved one, we retreat to a land of imagination and indulge an approximation of life in favour of the reality of Death. So when Death creeps forth in the most insidious of manners, we dance to his tune and play along with his dire plans, yet we render ourselves oblivious to his presence in the most stupid of ways. We scrunch our eyes up and push our fingers into our ears whilst making a cacophony of noise to drown out the Grim Reaper’s presence. Mercifully, we do not see him laugh at our antics. That at least is a saving grace.

Blindly, I lean forward and scrabble at the carpeted floor, retrieving the photo and bringing it to the table. Now I draw the chair closer, and clasping my head in my hands I look at the photo once again. With a force of will, I push back through the thickening veil of confusion and despite my cascading tears, I see clearly for what might just be the last time.

That is me on the beach in Tenby. I took that photo, holding the camera at arm’s length. My other arm around the shoulders of the boy. This is not a random photo. This tableau has been captured millions of times before. A special moment. A holiday spent with family. A father and son. Together. Togetherness is what the photo is meant to capture. A symbol of the invisible connection that we all yearn for and spend our lives pursuing, building and maintaining.

The angry man was my son as he is now.

I did not recognise him. 

I am struggling to recognise him as a boy.

He is gone, but he is still there. He was here just now, larger than life. He rose up before me and begged and pleaded for me to remember him, but I could not. In my deteriorating mind, he is no more. He is gone with a finality that not even the dead experience.

I am so ashamed. There is a weakness within me that sullies everything that I am. Everything that I was. I have no right to do this to him. I should not be this way. I am failing and I do not want to be like this. I do not want him to see me like this. I did not mean to betray him, and yet I did. The words it’s not my fault roil up from the depths of my shame and despair and I hate the sight and sound of them. They are a banner for my weakness and I do all I can to reject them, but banish them I cannot. They linger like the stench of a rotting corpse.

My body tremors with a shudder that threatens to shatter me into a thousand pieces. I feel like I have murdered my own son, but it is worse than that. Far worse than that. 

It is me who is dead. I am decomposing in front of those who love me. I look the same, but I am a travesty of what I once was. My face is slack and grey. I am a walking reminder of someone who ceased to be quite some time ago. With a fading frequency I return to haunt my loved ones and in those moments I inspire a false and cruel hope, for in the next moment I will deny those people and then I will betray them.

I am a void, and in that lack I question all that is held dear. My connection with the world is broken and I am increasingly beyond love. I feel love, but I cannot convey it any longer. I cannot remember how to do that. I cannot recall those who were once as much a part of me as any of my organs or limbs. I am falling apart and those who once loved me are forced to witness the worst of deaths.

At some point I stop crying and with the cessation of tears comes the fog of a confusion that has teeth and a hunger that will never be sated. It feeds on my most valuable possessions. Gnawing at my memories one by one. It will not stop until I have nothing left. The last of the memories it will feast upon will be the simplest. I will forget how to be. I will lose the motor memories that allow me to breathe and I will drown in the grey of a hopelessness that has no name. Or if it does, I will not know its name. I was never any good with names.

In my desperation, I have sometimes wondered whether I will go on to the next life. My reasoning is sound, but then I remind myself that I was limited even before all of this. We are mortal and frail. Incapable of comprehending the enormity of the infinite, let alone the meaning that it holds. A temporary miracle imbued with a spark of life. Maybe there will be nothing of me left at the end. Nothing worth keeping hold of. But then I feel that spark. There is a light that burns within me still.

Then I remembered something with this corrupted mind that has forgotten how to remember. When our time here is at an end, angels come to us and they strip us of everything that has weighed us down in this existence. They remove everything that we would cling onto. Left to our own devices, we would not let go, telling ourselves a lie; that we cannot. Letting go should be the easiest thing in the world, but in our denial of our own death we dig in and refuse the only certainty we ever had in this life.

I see it now, and I see it clearly. I no longer stare into the darkness of what I had foolishly chosen to call an illness. And I feel lighter. I feel my light all the more. It is my time. I have had a good life. Of course I have. I would not have grieved so fiercely had I not. It would not have pained me to say goodbye to all those I love and have loved if I had not lived well. 

It all makes sense and I am at last ready. Sometimes you have to flip a thing around to see it for what it really is. It really is quite simple. We make things more complicated and difficult than they ever need to be.

You see, the angels came early, and they are freeing me. Now I know that, I can stop fighting them. I allow myself a smile. I smile as I consider what it is that I have been about. I fought the angels! We are such mindless fools, and yet the angels still come. They keep the faith even as we prove ourselves ignorant and unworthy. I can feel it all now and the pain is just one more memory that the angels will take from me. I no longer need it. It is time for something else.