A SCRIBE FROM THE ASHES

I want to tell you about the day I died.

I swore I’d never write about this again, but recently I saw something that forced me to accept that I had no choice but to re-visit the past. Before I get to that, allow me a moment to recap.

It is rare that a person meets the love of one’s life. It is even more rare when that person reciprocates. Yet that somehow seemed to happen and for four years there was relative bliss. Yes, there were obstacles and road bumps and all the other clichés. Yes I allowed fear to rule over my better judgment and to erode away at my instincts until there was only a blank slate remaining.

I’m not known as a hopeful person. I tend to side with the Buddha when it comes to hope, regarding it as an extension of human arrogance and ego based on self-gratification. “Give up hope,” my Zen master said with a smile. This enraged a guest who had come to our temple who didn’t understand he was only saying it shouldn’t be necessary if you apply yourself to the moment.

I allowed myself to hope; I stopped living in the moment. I lived for a dream, a delusion, and an empty promise that was never fulfilled.

I allowed myself to believe in something and I paid the price. Although things had fallen apart, I knew they would be repaired. I knew. Just like I knew who you were the first time we kissed. But you didn’t seem to know who I was anymore. So, when I finally wrote to you and asked you why I felt like I’d been discarded and asked if there was even an “us” anymore, everything was summed up in two incomplete sentences.

“I’m sorry I haven’t written…yes, you are right. There is no “us” anymore…”

That was it. That was the last thing you ever said or wrote to me. Four years of my life wiped out just like that.

What followed was something I’ve had mixed feelings about ever since I did it. Some days I feel it was justified, others I am disappointed in myself. But at the time I was always five seconds away from total mental collapse. My reply to your terse and passive words was filled with venom, rage and accusation. I still have it to reference and have done so many times. How ironic that it’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever written.

My regrets are numerous but that letter is the greatest of them. Who knows what might have happened if I hadn’t written it? Maybe nothing. After all, I found out through a third party that you’d met someone else.

Devastated and depressed are two of the most over-used words in the English language, yet they are the only ones I have available to me. I fell apart. I died inside. I told myself love was the widening chasm ever out of reach, always on the periphery. Not for me. Never for me.

And so I devoted myself to my so-called “art” and immersed myself in practicality. I was used to emptiness so its return was no shock to me. “Hello, darkness, my old friend.”

I have since lived a life absent of the kind of emotion I once embraced so readily. Joy is a person’s name, not a feeling I know. I have missed you terribly with an intensity second only to how much I miss my mother. Time has not tempered this in the slightest. So much for all the advice. When it’s real, I guess we are burdened with it as long as we live. Somehow I doubt you have this problem.

For more than half a decade I have carried our moments with me everywhere I go. I have whispered good night to you when no one could hear me and have spent just as much time trying to forget you. Despite my attempts at re-building, it has all seemed hollow, like the dream we have minutes before our bodies awaken. Even the book I wrote seems empty because you won’t be there to share in it, even as a friend. One day I realized all my attempts at fiction were about you and how much I wanted you to come back to me.

Still, in spite of all I have written today, it seemed as if I’d finally found some measure of solace in life. I didn’t feel unhappy anymore. My moods were generally good. I thought I’d moved on.

Then I decided to type your name into a search engine. It wasn’t a pre-meditated act; it was spontaneous, much like the way your disappearance from my life looked to me. I’d been searching for any trace of you or your family online for years with disappointing results. No matter what was said or written or done, I always wanted to make sure you were OK. But you were gone and no search turned up anything. I thought maybe you’d gotten married and changed your name. Finally, I gave up and accepted that I’d never see you again or know of your fate.

Enter MySpace.com, a site I personally have little use for and am only on because my publisher demanded it. I never thought I’d find you there!

Two people with your name came up and even as I clicked on to them I knew you would be one of them. I didn’t believe it at first but your face is unmistakable. I stared at the picture, my upper body growing numb, my mouth unable to stay closed. I felt myself swooning but not the way one swoons when overloaded by true love. I felt sick, I felt like I was going to pass out. I couldn’t look away from the screen as much as I tried. You looked happy.

So did he.

I will not descend into pettiness at this point. I will not go on and on about what I thought of what I saw. Not only would it not be constructive, it would be childish and, sorry ladies, very female.

Suffice to say he looks a bit like me. Not his features but his look is reminiscent of the one I had back when we were together. I don’t care what he looks like. My interest lies in a different direction.

Why is he wearing a tux?

Why is he wearing a tux? I repeated that question in some dark corner of my mind until I realized there were no answers. You weren’t dressed in white; you had on what appeared to be a red, spaghetti strap dress. Your profile had your last name listed, implying you weren’t married. Was there relief in that realization? I don’t know. I couldn’t get past your smile. You looked so happy, so complete. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream and throw things and scare the h_l out of the dogs until my house was in shambles and I was on my knees, dry heaving and wiping tears from my cheeks.

Instead, I sat there and stared at that picture until I knew I wouldn’t be alone much longer. No reaction, no nervous breakdown…nothing.

That was the day I really died. There was nothing else left inside to react anymore. You took that part with you and gave it to someone else.

When I think of you now, I think of two things. I think of the first time you saw me cry and it broke your heart. Then I think of the second time I cried, in public, in the midst of a nervous breakdown, and the blank expression on your face. Some memories are best forgotten, but some need to be constantly remembered.

I was reminded of it when I sent you a message informing you of my upcoming publication. I also said it would be nice to catch up. Within two days your profile had vanished. This is how it finally ends, with me feeling like a goddam idiot for carrying the barely lit embers of a torch that should have gone out a long time ago. Once my usefulness was over, so were we. I became little more than a resource.

You piece of shit. Fuck off and die horribly. If there's a hell, burn in it for eternity.

This is the day I came back to life~