He sat, huddled against the metal chair outside the bar, hands sheltering his cigarette from the rain. Lifting it to his mouth he inhaled and thought of her.
Of all of them.
Lovers, masters and whores.
The parade of the damned.
He drew in again, feeling the humble warmth from the embers glow.
Simple.
Far removed, from the lies, the betrayals, the senseless heartache and brutal failures. All memories past.
An old man, staring down the end of days.
The greatest tragedy of all he thought, was that though the body aged, the heart still wanted, what it always had.
Youth.
Sighing he leaned against the rail as passers by stared, wide eyed and shocked.
Exhaling, he ensured the smoke drifted across towards them. They feigned coughs, all waving hands and disgust.
His face, weathered by time still mustered the smallest of grins. No one smoked anymore, but he didn’t care.
They simply failed to realise, the sensation, of simple pleasures.
For simple pleasures, he had learned, were all there really was.
He shook his head and considered the limited depths of what he had truly come to know, after 70 years, living and dying, a thousand lives, every time reborn, a little worse for wear.
No great epiphanies, or profundities, only, the folly of youth, that it was wasted. Never appreciated until the body wearied, and the soul lay tainted, poisoned by a life lived.
They could never know. To appreciate,
every passing moment.
Waste.
He finished the last of the smoke and stamped it out, pausing as his heel twisted over the dwindling ash.
Over. All of it, gone.
Love, youth, the call of the wild.
Excitement.
How he longed, for days, between the sheets, with a woman, fucked and worn in the early light.
A gift, youth could never truly cherish. For them, there was always another, just around the corner.
How long, had it been?
He had lived a lion, yet was dying, a tabby cat death.
Declawed and house broken.
A pet.
Yet it was not death, that terrified him, but the slow, inexorable slide, into oblivion.
Decay.
Reaching for his beer he eased slowly down onto the chair, his aching back shuddering in the cold.
Christ.
So worn.
Not long now he mused, till even the memories faded, and he sat, a dribbling husk of mindless flesh.
No booze, no smokes.
Just a pretty young nurse, and a limp, and useless cock. The cruellest of injustice.
The good didn’t die young, just the lucky ones.
If there was a god, he couldn’t wait.
To tear his fucking eyes out.
Broken and tired, he gazed wistfully at the passing crowds across the bay, ignoring the steady droplets of rain spattering his jacket and table. Thousand of voices colliding in the night, reverberating across the still ocean. Life, was for the living.
Not the walking dead.
Head bowed he took a moment to steady himself before rising from the table. Lifting his cane he gripped the brass handle and slid his fingers across the engraved surface.
“Sorrowful, are we”
Sorrow. A word he never truly understood.
Until now.
Yet this night, unlike so many before it, was to be, his last.
The time had come, the fight was gone, lost.
He glimpsed the calm ocean waves and thought of her.
Love, he realised, was never present, in the moment, that was simply passion.
No.
Real love, came only after, it had gone.
Regret, was the true measure of love, of its worthiness.
He hadn’t cried, in thirty years. Yet, the thought of lying next to her, blonde hair draped over his shoulders, held close in the morning light, brought tears to his eyes.
She had been the one, he had truly loved, he’d just never realised it, until now.
40 years,
Too late.
Always too late.
Head bowed he began the long journey, tracing song-lines in memorial, each aching step bringing him closer to the most painful of realisations.
He had missed it, in all his arrogance, it was never clear. Happiness was but moments, small , shared.
Connection.
He had spent a life, scrutinising every detail. He had forgotten, to live, each moment, as if it were his last.
Youth…
Now, as he reached the end, it was all so clear.
He paused by the waters edge, as the agonising sense of realisation overcame him.
The great tragedy, was not the hearts desire for youth, the greatest tragedy of all, was that knowledge came,
too late.
His heart racing he leaned against the railing.
Here, in the hole. Where bitter tears pool.
Beyond reach.
Gripped hands and shallow breaths, he stood stalwart, glimpsing the void. Overcome by grief, he keeled over and vomited into the ocean.
This is the way the world ends.
No grandiose statements, or supplicant gestures, just the sting, of this rancid acid taint.
Reason lost, he felt his body convulse, a shaking anxiety uncontrolled, childish. The tears welled,
abandon.
Regret,
Regret.
Regret.
Hands clenched he tried to fight it.
He failed.
Through blurred eyes his fists and battered the railing, blood and pain against concrete.
Again and again, the wanton rage of the deprived.
He called out, to god, to man, to all that came before, a renouncement of life. Prolonged and guttural, the death rattle of the forgotten.
Gazing to the sky in supplication he begged for wisdom. For comfort.
Darkness.
Light from dead stars.
No poetic epiphany came. Just worn eyes staring at the infinite,
black
and empty.
An insignificant husk, floating on a ball of rock in the void.
Small.
Wasted. All wasted.
Just as soon as it had come, the wails of agony ceased, nothing,
but the lapping sounds of the waves touching the shore.
The quiet dark overcame him.
He wiped the slivers of drool from his chin and lit a cigarette, his blood soaked hands trembling in the cold.
His mind flooded, with the quiet repose of relief. Peace.
One final drag. One final, true, moment.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Lifting his old form across the rail, he balanced above the water. A final pause,
A mind emptied.
Hesitations death knell.
Clarity.
He groaned, then flung himself into the depths of the ocean.
His body overtaken.
Cold.
So cold.
As he sank, he gazed upward and pondered,
it was over now.
It was over,
now.
Rest.
Slumber deep.
Your battles are done old man.
The war, was over.
Yet as he swallowed the salty water and took his final desperate gasp for air.
He knew.
Somehow
There was still time,
He inhaled, water flooding his lungs.
There was still time.
Realisation.
Yet once again, it had come.
Too late.
Nothing, but regret.