Island

The sand on my face burned, the sounds of the waves pierced my ears and the desperation in my heart by the second grew stronger while my hope faded away. When I was lost at sea, I was hopeful that having found an island I would have a sliver of a chance to be found. I’ve been here 13 years now.  Nobody was ever going to come looking for me. Not my ex-wife. Not my kids. My mother hated me. My father, the only man who could have empathized, was long gone. As I wish I was. Make my family’s–what’s left of them–dreams come true. It’d be better if I was gone, so here I am, as good as gone gets while I can still breathe this wretched air. As if they had all collectively dreamt or wished this hell upon me. 

“like a ship that sails through the billowy water, and when it has passed no trace can be found, nor track of its keel in the waves” Wisdom 5:10

I’m nothing but a small dot in history. That’s my life. Insignificant and expendable. What am I to do? What am I to think? Not a single hope even beckons me. The calling of my hunger no longer suffices, I remain still, bedecking myself with nothing more than the pearls my greatest adversary would relish in adorning me with. There are certain thoughts that one has in one’s head. With distractions, they can swiftly be avoided. Without ever having to answer them. “What is the point of my life? Would it even matter if I made it back? What’s the meaning in all of the suffering that I’m going through? What’s the lesson I’m supposed to be learning?” Even if I survived, it wouldn’t matter. I’d be the same person when I got back home. I don’t wanna change. Even if I decided to change today, it wouldn’t matter, it wouldn’t save me. It’s too late! I could be the best person in the world who would’ve never deserved even stepping foot on that boat destined for this island. It wouldn’t make a difference, none of that would get me out of here and this is most likely where I deserve to rest eternally. Why? Well, because here I am. What else is owed to me, but where I currently reside? The warm abode of true love? Nope, never again. All a mask for what really was, my inevitable reclusion dovetailed with my isolated wasting. Here I live and here I’ll die! Even my thoughts, worthless. Even my motivation, worthless. Everything I do is worthless, all vanity, all an imbecilic effervescent chasing after the wind. So, here I lay ready to be consumed by whatever is more powerful than me. Nothing around here cares about me. Nor do I care for it or them. Nothing in the outside world does either. If it’s stronger, I will succumb to it. What choice do I even have? I am the weakling. I’ve surrounded myself by the enemy–me. That great legion which cascades upon me unceasingly and monotonously as the waves do to the shore. This is the world I built. I chose to get on that damaged boat, so I could make a few extra dollars. I’m not unfortunate. I was in dire need of money, because I wasted it on gambling, alcohol, fast food, and everything you can think of which doesn’t condemn a man to this fate, but it sure does leave one unprepared for it. Not everybody that does those things deserves what I’m going through, but would you even dare to ask those self-same men the horrid question of “what is it that they do deserve?“ Those questions, a busy man simply chooses not to ask himself, because well after all he is much too busy with many important matters to muddy his affairs with such foolish intellectual errands which are better dealt with by those of non-pragmatic dispositions. His distractions are of no consideration—according to this well to do useful fellow—when meting out the punishment for the omission he has so dreaded to admit to in the face of the impending consequences to the aforementioned distractions from which he proudly busies himself with. The futile hope is that this man, unlike me, thinks himself to be the exception from arriving at his own abandoned island despite having stepped in the boat with a ticket displaying that very destination he had bought with the money earned while doing those important things. I implore this man to continue to build up his own world and he’ll see it won’t make a difference if he’s here or in the real world, it’s an island nevertheless.

My tears beset the necklace as if they were real diamonds. Inside of it there was a picture of my youngest child who’d passed 13 years ago. I lost it at sea. In a fit of rage, I tore it to pieces, the voices insisted I do. I like the voices when they comfort me. I hate them when they condemn me for the comforts they convinced me to partake in. Now, it’s obvious what let me down the path that I took. It’s obvious that I didn’t handle my affairs appropriately. I’m not gonna question again, whether I deserve what it is that I’m going through, but I’m no better out there than I am here. She died from cancer. Who could’ve thought that? I left my faith, I began to drink and  if I had a chance, I would’ve cheated on my wife incessantly. She could feel that, that’s why she left me. My kids hated me and not only because l gambled away their college fund, but for the simple ironic fact that I left them first. I left to come here, knowing I’d never return. They knew I’d blame them for not chasing after me, they were well aware of my affinity for those voices. We haven’t spoken since the day they’d lost their sister. I chose to lose my family. That’s something I don’t deserve. I can tell you that right now. It doesn’t matter what kind of people they are now after all these years. Even if they themselves have found their own islands to perish on. I didn’t deserve them, not after what I chose to become in response to losing my child. I reassured people, as they’d question my decisions that I have the right to grieve how I want to. Some in defense of me, told others that I was grieving and that I was allowed to grieve how I saw fit. What an incredible way to take full advantage of compassion in the world. I abused my station in life and that season in my life. I extended it for as long as I was able to. I still miss her. Is there a proper way to respond to the evil in the world? People say no. People would rather deal with the consequences of the decisions that they make or attempt to avoid those consequences with distractions, just like I did–as does that busy man–so that they don’t have to face that question. I don’t know what the proper response to grief is, but what I can tell you about is the improper response to it. Other people can tell you that they're the exception. All those who get on that boat say what I said, “no I’m different, I’m not doing what you did. I’m doing it differently.“ Crazy, they don’t think they sound like me. I can’t tell you what the proper response is, but like I said, I can see you from a mile away. I see you on that boat sailing to that island. I won’t wave you down. I won’t lament that you didn’t save me, for that is not the purpose of your boat. I’ll let you arrive at your island. Enjoy yourself or don’t. It makes no difference. Leave me out of your mess, I’ll leave you out of mine and we’ll tolerate each other just fine. Do not dare come to my island, leave me here and there will be no trouble.