Lost and Frozen (The Garden II)
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The Garden (Part 1)
There are a
set of eyes, across the room, staring at me with such lust and passion that I
have no doubt they belong to an individual who loves me unconditionally. I
cannot hold the gaze, my own vision falters as I begin to wonder if I will truly
be able to reach such a state with my own heart. I shift my eyes once more to
align my visage with the face of the beast who still stares back with innocence
and naivety. There is no jealousy within the optics of this creature, I could
abuse it, mistreat it, or cause it physical harm that it does not deserve, yet
it would still come back, seemingly happy, with forgiveness and benevolence in
its heart.
The dog barks, with a coy grin,
perhaps for no other reason than to remind me that it is still in the room. Oddly
enough, I smile back, but I think there is sadness on my face. At this moment I
portray an individual with a broken heart. Pessimism consumes me, and keeps me
stuck in a spiral of bitter remorse. The dog in the room—the brown and white
being—evokes thoughts that have been plaguing me since the beginning of my
days. This animal, this critter, this soul across from me is the optimist while
I am its other half. The dog and I stare at one another—together we have a
holistic view or the world. But, in truth, we are both fine. The dog is
satisfied being a dog, and I am satisfied being somewhere between a boy and a
man. My brain continues to think, my heart continues to feel warmth, and my
body has survived defeat.
The last time I was in this room,
the last time I stared into this dog’s set of eyes, was on the night my mind
was so adrift, that I felt as though my thought processes were so mixed up and
backwards I was positive I would never be unfuddled again. I sat, in the exact
spot I am in at this moment; my head was spinning. I was weak and vulnerable,
my heart had an open wound, and was leaving a trail of sanguine fluid behind me
as I stood up to walk the city streets. Through the darkness, I desperately
tried to hold onto my beliefs, the morals and guidance that I have built my
life around. But they were slipping, and I was ready to give in to the evil all
around me. I wished to break every sacred vow that I laid upon myself.
My footstep brought me in circles, I
had no destination, and I was unsure of what to do with myself—all that I knew
was that it was vital that I continued to walk. If my footsteps ceased, and I
was left alone in my head, I knew, it could easily be the death of me. I had
grown callous and confused, I was desperately afraid of my own shadow. Looking
back, I’m relatively certain that what I sought was acceptance, belonging, and
another human voice to linger with my own to wed together in the art of
conversation. My fingers went numb first, followed by my ears and then toes.
Eventually my entire body felt as though it had succumbed to the frigid night’s
air. I knew that I could not expose myself to the elements any longer, so I
vowed to duck indoors at the next opportunity.
I came across an Irish pub that I
strolled into once before, nearly a year previous. My heart was feeling as
amiss on that night as it was on this night. I met a man, during my previous
encounter as this establishment, he was three times my age and ten times wiser.
He talked me through my heartbreak then, and elated my soured soul. It seemed
far too coincidental that I ended up here again. Even though I wandered with
unguided destination, I could not help but wonder if I was guided here by some
mystique force. Perhaps I returned, to seek him out and to once again let him
into my head. I wanted him to rip apart the cobwebs which always seem to keep
me from thinking with perfect clarity.
When I took my first steps into the
pub, I had a sinking feeling within my chest. My already dampened spirits were
further supressed when I found I would have to pull up a stool at the bar
alone.
“What will ya be having tis
evening?” The bartender asked, as he cantered towards me. In all honesty, I
neither cared nor desired to spend my time giving it any thought.
“Whatever you want,” I responded. He mumbled something before turning his
back to me, and based on his gruff exterior, it probably wasn’t too pleasant.
Perhaps it was just my imagination
taking the reigns of my sanity, but the next time I turned my head to the right
I was met with a figure, cradling a glass of scotch like it contained the
secrets of the universe.
“Excuse me sir,” I said to him.
“Yes, young man,” he responded with
a sly intonation.
“I am not sure if you remember me or
not, for I am sure that I do not give a lasting impression—”
“You underestimate the effect of our
previous conversation. I very much do remember you, and all the trouble brewing
within your chest. Now tell me, what is the current condition of your heart?”
I wasn’t quite sure how to answer
his question. I opened my mouth on several occasions before getting the words
to fit just right. “My heart… Is vapid at this moment. I am not sure what to
believe anymore, I am not sure what is right… What is wrong? There are so many
people in this world, and all offer a unique perspective. But so many of them
are poison! They belittle your ideas, they belittle your desires and dreams and
make you feel worthless. And that is how they manipulate you into their way of
thinking. I know I sound sardonic and cynical, but I can’t help but look upon
the world with a glum outlook… How can this be all there is? How can there just
be life and death and nothing more?”
“Young man, you may feel as though
you are the first person to have their mind tainted, you may feel like the
first person to question the purpose of our existence—to search for answers
beyond deities and wishing upon stars. You feel as though a piece of you has
been taken, you feel as though your heart is missing, but it’s been with you
all along. You are old enough to see the imperfections in the world but not so
old that you can understand them. We are all searching for the answers to our
questions, for we are all searching for ultimate meaning. We are all searching
for the reason we have been put on this planet.” He put his hand on my
shoulder, and let it linger as I searched for an appropriate response.
“I like to believe that there is
good in this world, as well as evil. Nobody is purely evil, just as nobody is
pure at heart. We all full somewhere along the spectrum,” I said to him.
“I believe you are correct.”
“But this system we live in… It is
not fair! Why is it that there are people in the world with nothing but good
intentions who die prematurely, who never find what it is they are looking for?
But there are people out there, selfish people who would sell their souls to
get ahead in life, who find happiness, find love, and find success. My initial
belief system, my innate viewpoint that I was given, is that good will always
prevail. Kindness is the methodology to capture hearts, gratitude is the secret
to happiness and success. But each day I wake, and the more people I speak to,
the more I start to think that I have everything backwards. How can lying,
cheating, and being an awful person pave the way to happiness?”
“Life is neither straight forward
nor complete. Your youthfulness betrays you. What you do not yet possess is
patience. You may grow callous, you may become more cynical than anybody who
has ever lived, but you cannot possibly hope to change your predisposition. If
you think that you will wake up one day and suddenly be able to look your peers
in the eyes and lie bluntly, you are sadly mistaken. If you think you will wake
up one morning and suddenly abandon your quest for self-improved you are much more
disillusioned than you seem.”
“Why not? Why can’t I hire an
experimental neurosurgeon to cut the neurons in my brain that control reason,
restraint, and my inhibitions? Why do I seem to have a destiny to always give
my heart away in the most inappropriate instances? I am starting to feel like a
chronicler, foreordained to watch the world pass by through my own paradoxical
eyes. But what of you? What of you, who has observed a near infinite amount of
life and death? How have you gotten past the wayward drifting of those special
individuals who, year after year, continued to claw at your heart?”
“There is no secret. There is no
magical remedy which will give you back your innocence, your childlike view of
the world. Each time your heart is cracked or chiselled, it will not grow back,
but instead be forever damaged. The secret is to continue living, to ignore the
itching, the wishing, and the sentiment that exists no longer.”
“But that cannot be life,” I said to
him.
“C’est la vie.”
“No, we are not simply living to
patch up holes in our character. What kind of life would we be living if it was
one without true love? What kind of life would it be if there are no consequences
for manipulating and sabotaging people? At this moment—at this very moment—each
breath is a struggle, my mental acuity is failing me and I feel more dead than
alive. But still, I cannot let go of my mindset. Even if I am fighting a losing
battle, even if I am destined to be broken hearted each and every day until I
pass away, I refuse to believe that there is nothing more to this life. If I
stopped believing that good will always prevail, I would have nothing left to
hang onto. My mind would flounder, because the lines of fiction and reality
would have become so intermingled that there would be no way to separate them.”
“We all have our vices, we all have
beliefs that keep us sane, if you need yours in order to—”
“I don’t just need my beliefs, I
need them to be true! I can’t believe a lie.”
“In this life there is no truth, there
are no lies. There are just people, who walk around as zombies, each and every
day of their lives. They don’t think; they don’t reason; they just are.”
“Will it ever change? Is there any
hope for us?”
“No, there definitely is not,” the
man responded with certainty.
We two men sat in silence, for what
felt like half the night. There was a gentle scratching as the bartender wiped
down the counter with an already soiled rag. I can even vividly remember the
sound of the flames in the fireplace crackling. The man I was sitting with
finished off his drink and lifted his coat from the seat next to him, as if to signal
that it was time for him to leave. And then, without a word, he was gone. I am
still not sure if he was actually with me that night, or if he was just a
phantom that I contrived to satisfied my basic human needs, to evade my loneliness.
“One more?” The bar tender asked me,
probably hinting that he wants to close for the night.
“Ahh… Yes, I am finished, I believe,”
I responded, not totally certain.
I rose from my seat and walked
towards the door, lingering by the hearth on my way out. I took a final scan of
the pub, to deeply encode it into my brain and then I left, I stepped back into
the winter night. The physical numbness that overcame me before I entered started
to flirt with me again. I began to hurry home, at a pace between a fast canter
and slow jog. But eventually, on my quest for warmth, I was distracted. A
pining within my chest began to gnaw at my heart. The feeling was so pronounced
that I had to stop walking completely. I paused, staring at my own breath in
the cold air. I switched directions, and instead of returning to my residence,
where I could sit down for a steaming glass of tea, I continued onwards,
towards the one place in the world where I know I can find tranquility.
The garden was lit by a single lantern,
which illuminated the snowy flowerbeds. The birds may have migrated months ago,
and to any passersby it may have appeared grey and dreary, but to me it was
simply radiant. To me, it looked just as it did the first time I came here to
rest my weary form.
It was the most beautiful summer evening I could have imagined. The
warbles and chickadees lost their chronic shyness as I sat next to them. They
flew from flower to flower and sang gaily, as if they knew that I was gazing
upon them and they wanted to give me the most profound performance they could
muster. My heart was so full of joy, that it would have taken an army of men to
remove me from the seat. I sat there, contently, writing about the beauty I had
been fortuitous enough to witness.
The second time I came here, a year
later, I was not alone. Of all the people whom I could have brought, I found
myself next to the individual who held my heart during my first trek here. And
I must admit, she held my heart still. I told her such, but the words were not
soon enough and before I had time to blink she was gone again. This time, the
rain drenched us both, and although the flowers did not seem to want to bloom,
the chickadees were still extroverts and the warblers still seemed happy to
have company.
Then, amidst my third trip here, I
was shaking and convulsing from the cold. The flowers were buried, the birds
long ago left and there was not another living soul as far as the eye could
see. Still, it was as peaceful as ever.
Pending frostbite eventually lifted
me from my seat, and before I blinked I was home again. The cup of tea I had
been fantasizing about since I left the pub was finally in my hand as I came to
rest on the old red sofa in the living room. I crashed down into the seat,
almost spilling the cup in my hand. I looked across the room, to the dog who
gazed at me. That was less than a day ago, but it might as well have been a
lifetime previous.
Today, I sit in the same seat,
staring at the same dog. He does not come running when I call his name, but
instead, he walks calmly before jumping in my lap.
“I know you can’t understand what I am saying, but I have a question for
you—what is the meaning of life? I wish I was better at articulating my
feelings, but I feel like I am looking for something. I feel like we are all
looking for something, but what is it? Could it be love? Companionship?
Acceptance? We are all in love with somebody, even you are in love with
somebody. I am so tired of this life, I am tired of looking for one person to
make me happy—one person who I can reciprocate that elation back to. Is that
what we all one? One person who can love us for who we are? You are just a dog
but even you know who makes you happy. Myself, I am not smart enough
to know what I want in this world. I had my heart broken once on a day like
today, the memory is still so fresh that it brings tears to my eyes just
thinking about it. Do you, a tiny puppy, understand these feelings I am trying
to describe to you? If you do, bark or shake my hand. Do something to let me
know that your head isn’t empty…”
The dog shifts its head, in such a
way as to make eye contact with me. The dog doesn’t say a word, perhaps because
it is a dog, but he gives me a look that nearly makes me gasp. There is such
human emotion tattooed across his face that for a second I completely forget
that he is not human.
“Thank you.” I say to the creature. “Perhaps
this is it. Perhaps this is the greatest love man is able to feel. The
unconditional bond that exists between you and me is unbreakable. Could I—or
any other person on this planet—ever been filled was such a pure emotion, such
altruism towards another person?”
I pause, upon posing the question,
which in all honesty was meant to be ironic. I let it circle around in my
cognition before thoughtfully providing a response. “Yes… Yes, I believe that
it is.”
The dog rests its chin on my lap
before closing its eyes and letting itself drift from conscious thought. I
place my right hand behind his ear and begin to rhythmically stroke the fur
that is draping down. I become as peaceful as the dog, content with the
resolution I have finally obtained.
DannYetman
www.yetmanpoetry.blogspot.com
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