the black lullaby

I can see her. I can see where she’s going. She’s travelling down a road that I’ve been on before. Shit! How do I get her off it? I’m trying, I’m trying really hard but she won’t listen to me. She insists that this road must be travelled. I could give up. I could walk away. But she’s come to mean too much in the time that has gone by. I can see the wolves in the distance. The same wolves that almost devoured me. They’re still there. They’re waiting. They have an eerie sense that picks up on a bleeding soul and her soul is not just bleeding, it’s gushing. Down the road she goes, further and further away from me. Deeper and deeper into the woods.

‘No.’

I whisper to myself, because if I shout it out then the wolves will hear me and they will know I’m attempting to stop their prey from coming towards them. They’ll finish her off before she has a chance to escape. The images in her mind flash as though they’ve been projected into the sky above the thick forest. I look up. I see beautiful moments. A soft touch and a tender kiss. A gentle moan and an hour of bliss. But each moment is deceptive, each acts as a Siren, lulling her into a false feeling of hope before she is consumed by it and then destroyed.

She keeps walking aimlessly. Can’t she feel their presence around her? What is she doing? She has to stop now. I watch helplessly as her foot is about to come down on a fragile branch in her path. In seconds her foot will be on it. In seconds the wolves will know exactly where she is. In seconds they will come at her with their sharp teeth, thirsty for her blood. I have to save her. I run towards her but something moves at the corner of my eye and I turn my attention away from her.

***

Who is this other woman? What is she doing here? I don’t know her, do I? She is cold and she’s alone. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she’s a strong one. She’s seen the world and she’s felt it’s bitter torture. She wants the wind to believe she is strong enough to withhold its treacherous force but she doesn’t know if she can keep it up anymore. She is confused.

She touches her stomach in hunger. She desires the taste of love.

She touches her breast in pain. She can’t stand the beating of her own heart.

She touches her head in anger. She doesn’t know what’s right and wrong anymore.

She looks up and she sees me. In that moment our eyes meet. She doesn’t know of the role I’ve played in her life but the longer I stare at her the more I remember. I used to know her. She doesn’t remember me. Thank God.

The more I study her the more I see that she’s melting away. She’s slowly ceasing to exist. I feel partly responsible but there’s nothing I can do. Or is there? Am I able to help her? What does she need to keep her from fading away? While I watch, her smile fades away and I can now see the tears. Her fist fades away and I can see her broken heart. Her pride fades away and I can see her misery. And all she needs is a helping hand.

Then I realize that it is within my power to offer her just that. All I need to do is reach out and she will be fine or at least her road to recovery will begin. She won’t feel so worthless and alone and invisible… Just a helping hand. The light is now fading away. In seconds the sun will set on her unfinished dreams. In seconds she won’t be able to see anything around her. In seconds she will vanish into nothing. I have to save her. I lift my hand up in her direction but then I remember the forest on the other side.

***

So who would you save? The one close to your heart or the one who has been wronged? If the branch breaks the wolves will come. If the sun sets the darkness will come. Who must laugh? Who must cry? Who must live? Who must die?

Who indeed.

She sits alone at the New Jersey airport wondering if she’s ever going to get any rest at all. She’s tired and her eyes are heavy with sleep. She’s had a long flight and she’s been traveling alone so she has no one to talk to. Just a little while ago she was at the belt waiting for her suitcase to arrive. When she’d thought she saw it she’d gone to retrieve it. But it wasn’t her suitcase, that didn’t stop her from trying to lift it off the belt, causing her to pull a muscle in her shoulder. She wonders why she did that while fighting back the tears that are welling up in her eyes.

She’s always been there for everyone. She’s always been dependable. But now she wonders if there’s anyone she can really depend on. She stares at the SMS on her phone, it’s from her son. It reads ‘I couldn’t tell them and I couldn’t contact you either.’ She wants to cry but she doesn’t want anyone to see her. She reminds herself of how strong she really is. Her bottom lip quivers but she bites it. In the background she hears the voice of a woman who keeps calling out the times of flights. In front of her the arrival board keeps flipping from time to time as more flights come in.

She’s lost her suitcase and she realizes that no one’s coming to get her because no one knows she’s arrived.

***

She wakes up next to her lover… no, the man she loves… no, the man she married… no, she doesn’t know who he is anymore. She looks at him fast asleep next to her. She wonders what she is doing that is so wrong. She reaches out to touch his shoulder but her hand stops half way. She thinks about the last time she was intimate with him. She has to think really hard before she can finally remember. She shakes her head as she steps out of bed and walks into the kitchen to prepare his food.

In the midst of tossing things into the pan she thinks about her close friend who advised her to try something new the day before. She tried it. It didn’t work. Her friend was right, it was proof of the fact that such gimmicks only worked on TV shows. She lets her mind wonder a bit. She considers the possibility of someone else in his life. She asks herself what must be done. She can’t think of anything. She directs her attention back to the gas cooker just in time to save her culinary creation from destruction.

She loves him. She knows he loves her. Does he? He used to. What does that mean? She doesn’t know. She knows that her friend will ask her about it when she gets to work later that day. She’s already decided on the answer. ‘It’s too late to get out of it now so I guess I’ll just have to live with it.’

***

He wakes up to the sound of the alarm on his phone. He knocks it off and lies in bed for the longest time. He stares at the ceiling and thinks of the things that have taken place the night before. He wonders if he’s done the right thing. He hates feeling this way. He thinks about work. He wonders if he should go in today and then he realizes he has a meeting at 10 am. He decides to make it in time for the meeting and rolls over in an attempt to fall asleep for fifteen minutes more. He receives an SMS. It’s from her, he doesn’t want to read it because he knows he’s not going to reply but he’s afraid that if he does read it, he might want to call her and tell her that life without her is miserable.

So he starts thinking about work instead. He thinks about the people who surround him with their double standards and their dirty politics. He wonders why he even tries but then remembers that he vowed never to let them take his spirit. He thinks about his friend, the one whose arms have grown cold without the embrace of the man she loves. He thinks about that man and is instantly furious at fate. That man has the woman he loves by his side and doesn’t treat her right and here he is, longing for the woman he loves but they’re both stuck in limbo. He reads the message because he’ll die if he doesn’t.

He smiles when he sees her words. He almost hits the reply button when yet another message arrives on his phone. It’s from his mother. It reads ‘Just arrived in New Jersey, it’s a little past 10 in the night. So tired. Did you mail them like I asked you to? Do you know who’s coming to pick me up?’

***

It was Sunday yesterday. I hate Sundays. Mostly because the next day is Monday and if there’s one thing you hate more than a Sunday it’s a Monday. But as the soft afternoon sun stroked the clouds that looked extra fluffy from the balcony of the guitarist’s office I started to wonder why I hated Sundays so much.

The Missing Sandwich (TMS) sat down next to me on a bed of cusions that were so comfortable it was almost a crime. The beer delivery man had just brought us some cool beer and the guitarist was strumming let it be on his guitar while our voices rose to the ocassion.

We spoke about our lives over the waves of music that passed beneath our conversation, almost like an episode from a tv show. We spoke of why it was so difficult for some people to let go and others to just hold on. We spoke of how we’re always the ones getting hurt but also how the next person who comes along probably feels the same way. We talked about music, about how it makes us feel.

We called Room Service and ordered stuff from Coffee Bean. I’m telling you, a pure chocolate ice blend is a notch less than perfect for a Sunday afternoon with friends.

In truth, none of us lived complicated lives. But we ourselves were complicated people. He wanted to start something new. She wanted to stop something old. I wanted a little bit of both, in reverse.

Yet somehow, through all the words, I kept thinking of why I hated Sundays so much. It was a decent enough day of the week. Probably the only one that allowed you to relax as much as it did. But I hated it. Then I fell asleep.

While I lay there caught between the real world and dreamland there had been more people who’d arrived. I could hear their laughter and their movement in the distance. I woke up unwillingly and I felt good. I looked out the balcony that I was sleeping next to, the fluffy clouds had almost completely disappeared and all that was left was a clear blue sky with a hint of lightning in the distance. Beautiful. And then it hit me. I didn’t have homework.

When I was a kid, Sunday was a reminder of school the next day. It was also a reminder of all the homework I hadn’t completed. I hated school and therefore I hated homework more, which was why I hated Sundays. But now, I didn’t have any homework.

Yea sure, life was far more of a mess, what with having to deal with work and relationships and friends and enemies and financial issues and gossip and insurance and, well you know…

But… isn’t it great to know that we can still find the joys that are attached to the little things? Like, not having any homework.

So maybe I won’t wait for Sundays like my life depended on it, but at least I don’t hate it anymore.

Have a great week ya’ll!

I just want to wish RD a very happy blog birthday and say thank you for more or less keeping the blogsphere so connected and involved with each other with the various things you do.

I never knew RD until I was hyperlinked in one of his posts and I went over to his blog to read it.

Since then I’ve come to know him as a fellow blogger and I am indeed pleased.

Of course it’s not ironic that the monster’s (wink wink) birthday happened to fall on Friday the 13th, hee hee…

So here’s wishing you a happy 3rd blog birthday and other good things in life from the black lullaby.

Yesterday was a bad day on my conscience. I spent most of last evening lost and alone trying to sort myself out and trying to figure out what must be done next. It’s not a nice place to be in, I can tell you that much. You feel as though you’ve wronged a lot of people and more than all of them, you feel like you’ve wronged yourself.

I’ve never intentionally set out to hurt anybody (unless they intentionally set out to hurt me first ) but even though it was unintentional, the fact that I know I’ve done something wrong still weighs heavy on me.

I tried and tried and tried to think of what must be done, what form of action must be taken and horror of horrors, I realized that sometimes silence is the best cure. However, that does little for what’s going on inside you.

Then last night, the strangest thing happened. Just before I went to bed, I decided to pray because I couldn’t shake off that horrible feeling. But while I was praying I realized that the fact that I felt bad about what I had done meant something. It meant that I still had a conscience and I’ve spent more than a year now believing that I didn’t have one anymore. Discovering that I could still feel bad over something was surprisingly a piece of comfort that couldn’t have come at a better time.

Yesterday for the first time in a long time I began thinking of how my actions would affect other people. I became a little less selfish and a little more human.

Maybe overall I’m not the nicest person you’d come across, but I’m certainly not a bad person and I’m glad I still have a conscience.

Although, it’s a pity I had to do what I did to figure that out.

Sigh.

Over the past few days that I’ve spent at my friend Ranil’s studio, I’ve been watching something called ‘The Return of ‘Allo ‘Allo’. It’s a piece done by the BBC to patch up all the lose ends of the show and it shows some of the key characters coming back to the bar, aged as they look, but still very much in character. The documentary began and then they focussed on some of the characters who had made a mark for themselves on the show and in the hearts of millions of viewers around the world. Each of the actors spoke a bit about their time on the show and the crazy things they did. It was a treat really.

As they focussed on these various actors, up came a segment on Carmen Silvera who played Edith Artois. I was a bit high at this point but the minute I saw clips of Edith again I was full of laughs. To my utter horror the voiceover said: a much remembered character was that of Renne Artois’ wife Edith, played by the late Carmen Silvera.

I didn’t think I heard them correctly so I paid more attention and then discovered that Carmen Silvera had indeed passed away in 2002. Her co-stars were talking about her and her character and suddenly I found myself feeling more misserable than I had felt in a long time. It was like I’d lost a family member and no one had bothered to tell me for almost seven years…

The more I thought of it the more I began to wonder why I felt that way. I mean I didn’t know Carmen Silvera at all, but it was like Edith was part of my life. For someone to just tell me over a documentary that she was dead seemed almost ludacrious.

Late last night I got on to Wikipedia and read up on the late Carmen Silvera. Apparently she had cancer and had chosen to fight it without chemo or any other form of radioactive therapy. She died at the age of 80 and according to the  people who knew her well, she lived a good life.

I never thought I’d be impacted by such a death, but I have to assume now that we immortalize such characters in our hearts and minds so well that we expect them to live on forever and ever.

Another such person whose death I was affected by was the late Sydney Sheldon. I hadn’t even seen the man, just read his books.

Strange isn’t it?