The End

"Close your eyes and take a step", she tells herself. "Let the wind carry your body, let go, let nothing and nobody matter." One step, it is all it takes. As she moves into the abyss, she takes in one long breath. The air that moves her lungs moves along the rest of her body now. She can hear it swishing by on her left and her right, it takes away all the pain. Gravity takes control of her body, but her spirit is free, she is floating. Deeper and deeper into the fall that seems to have no end; ah 'end' it is such a dear word. Powerless and numb, there is no sensation, she only breathes. Every worry gone, every problem seems so pointless, every suffering, every disappointment, every last shred of pain, gone. For those precious few seconds, her heart calms down, her mind relaxes, her muscles unwind, her nerves stop bothering her, and there is only the air in her chest and the wind caressing her body. Everything she held important is completely meaningless now, why did she ever care? It doesn’t matter, she has found her salvation.

She opens her eyes and looks down, down into the bottom, that is where her numb body would have been had she taken the step. At the pit, with the rocks, still and calm, liberated and lifeless. Instead she takes a step back and turns around. As she starts to walk she realizes her one true salvation will have to wait. She was at the edge yet again. A part of her has already died today so that the rest of her may live on. She dies, everyday, a little bit, and she waits, for that one fine day when she wouldn’t have to die all the time. As she walks along, a relieved smile flutters along her lips. 

The Garden and the Wilde Words

I'm always a little extra happy when I see a post in facebook that says something in the lines of "join us in wishing Oscar Wilde a happy birthday". That day I'm happy that he was born, I'm happy that I discovered him. He makes me fall in love with beauty, he takes me into the garden of Basil Hallward, the blessed garden with the flowers, the leaves, the sunlight and with Dorian. Dorian, the Adonis.
Years have gone by since the first time I was at the garden, since the first time I saw Dorian drinking the scent of some flower and getting doe-eyed listening to Henry Wotton. But the garden is still alive, and like Dorian, it is unspoiled, beautiful and youthful.
I know the garden, with all its beauty and charm, is not real, and I know Dorian, with all his beauty and charm, is not real. But there are times, especially when immersed in Wilde Words, where reality is just an extension of the imagination and where fact gives way to fiction to find 'beautiful meanings in beautiful things'.
In this quest, I look out the student's window where the little nightingale is draining its heart's blood into the red rose, I watch Hugie sulk in his walk after his extravagance and his charming scolding, and, I look into the broken leaden heart of the happy prince. The tragic beauty, or, is it comic? How dreadful of me to even suggest that!!!
But it is just simple, plain, pure beauty, one that cannot be spoiled, cannot be adulterated.
And in the end, I will always be fond of him, he represents to me all the sins I never had the courage to commit.