Life Reflections at Death's Door
~ The Final Promise of a Silent Goodbye ~

So many years, so many lives, with countless wonders and horrors witnessed. How many friends and lovers, wives and children hold a part of your heart in the cold confines of their now empty or aging graves? I once heard it said, that agony too long endured sears the soul and dulls all compassion, until the only things that remain are stifled emotions too tightly bound beneath a smothering shield of icy indifference to ever break free.

Don't reach…don't touch…don't care…they lead to nothing but more loss, more pain…and draw you ever closer to the precipice of overwhelming despair's black void.

I too have stood at the brink of that hellish abyss, though not for as long as you…hurt, angry and afraid; yet numb, isolated, silent, uncaring. Perhaps that was the thread that ultimately drew us together, a strange bond of understanding, a flash of recognition that let you truly see me for the first time against the back-drop of grief's eternal night.

In the beginning I was the one who came to you, though my reasons were not as innocent as I made them seem and kept secret from all. Seeking to save a life already lost, I was willing to risk everything for a final chance to rescue the one I'd loved. And though my place at your side was born of deceit, I grew to value the trust you placed in me, struggled to convince myself that I'd be able to carry out my desperate plan with none the wiser or wounded. But the more I learned about you, the more unbearable my life became…guilt growing into a crushing weight that a cheerful smile was hard pressed to hide. Still, you made me feel like I belonged and was needed, blurring the less appealing memories of a sometimes rough edged childhood…dulling the nightmare of my last position's catastrophic demise.

Yet for another's sake I betrayed your trust all the same, endangered everyone around me, and in the end I still failed to save the one who'd meant so much to me before we met. The inky depths whose slip-sand rim I'd fought desperately to avoid rose like a spectre from the grave, and threatened to swallow me whole. It would have been only too easy for you to cast my fate to the four winds, to end my misery with a once promised bullet, or lock me away for all time and let the horrors I'd set loose devour me from within. Instead you kept me close and once more offered trust, testing the now troubled waters between us. Then in spite of your own suffering or perhaps because of it, you took my hand and lead me away from the crumbling edge of the endless torment I faced, saved me from the fall into slow death it was drawing me toward.

Casual at first, more a game of distraction than true desire…yet powerful beyond anything that had touched my life till then. Slowly I felt my shattered heart start to heal, my shredded soul begin to mend. Moments of random play and thinly veiled flirtation became those I longed for the most, as the growing heat between us gradually melted the frigid armour you'd worn inside for so long. Our time together brought a light to your eyes I'd never seen before and others didn't seem to mark, but that I would give anything to kindle.

Time turned around us almost unnoticed, the perils of the profession often ignored as long as the other was safe…you gave me courage and you let me shine. Significant mistakes were made, apologies tendered and despair slowly became a distant memory for us both. I was well aware I wasn't the first co-worker you'd been intimately involved with, not likely to be the last…just one more passing fancy in a long line of flings through the ages you were destined to span. But I never was much for casual relationships, and though I'd promised myself I'd never fall in love again, you quickly owned my heart. For me it was you and only you from very early on, regardless of whether what we shared meant anything to you at all. The others thought me a naïve fool; perhaps you did as well, simply sparing my feelings by never saying it to my face. I only knew I needed the connection we had, no matter how tenuous or short lived. And that I'd walk through fire to be at your side to the bitter end whether you loved me back or not.

When again friends were taken from us, we lent each other strength and grew that much closer for it. Life together felt good, and I was glad I hadn't turned away in wounded anger when you came to coax me from misery's deadly cliffs. Though I knew it was likely no more than an entertaining game for you, it meant the world to me. For a time we seemed to fit like hand and glove, until one too many narrow escapes caused some deep rooted fear to sound alarms in your mind…

Too close… too close… too close… like the beat of an ice-sheathed black heart, whose incessant rhythm seemed bent on driving us apart. You started to push me away, and though it hurt more than I'd ever admit, I tried to hold onto you and hoped the tide would turn in my favour once more. But there were so many secrets you were keeping from me, so many ugly truths about your long life. And when the veils over some were lifted at last, it was more from anger-laced guilt and tightly bound panic than the trust and love I'd secretly hoped for.

For calamity had come upon us, a ghost from your past; a returning threat that last time had warranted an act too despicable to speak of, a closet skeleton whose presence painted targets on us all. Despair's yawning chasm rushed back close to my heels when I feared I'd lost you to a fate you refused to let me share, regardless that my dearest wish was to stay by your side no matter what the dangers were.

Again you pulled me from the tar-like grip of fear filled grief, when you kept your promise to come back. And I willingly committed body and soul to you, though I well understood that our time together was unavoidably finite. In that moment the world felt right once more, and the light returned to your eyes.

I didn't know then what darkness loomed little more than a day away, was blissfully unaware of how soon I would be bound to the same fate as so many of your companions and colleagues, couldn't have dreamed that I would suffer the heartache of watching you plead to have me spared as others fell around us. I never imagined I'd find myself held close in your arms hearing you promise to never forget me, tearfully begging me to stay with you even as I could feel the breath leaving my body…and see all the Hells of the Universe rise behind your eyes like countless hungry black flames, trying to shred your soul and carve your heart still beating from your chest. Only in that moment did I truly know the nature of what we shared. For it wasn't solely physical, nor simply a one-sided affaire centred on the all consuming love I'd come to harbour for you…because I could now see that secreted behind your chill caution and calculated indifference, you honestly did love me far more deeply than I'd ever thought possible, and desperately wanted to deny that you had to let me go this soon.

What blood soaked Faustian pacts would you have forged if the beast had been willing to bargain? Was there any part of yourself and the world that you would not have willingly sacrificed if it meant you could keep me by your side?

I didn't want to die. Not because I was afraid…I already knew the harsh truth of what was waiting for me and had resigned myself to that end long ago. I just wanted more time with you, a chance to be the confidant you so desperately needed and see how long our relationship could last if you were willing to give it the room to grow. Most of all, I didn't want to abandon you as so many others had in the past. To stay with you I'd have accepted any curse, fronted any price…so long as I could spare you the tortured fall into our shared abyss, lead you safely from its treacherous rim as you had so often rescued me. It's been written that the human will can be a very powerful force, capable of accomplishing the seemingly impossible. But it's a cruel lie, for no matter how desperate the desire, how strong the drive and absolute the belief, will alone couldn't keep me with you when you needed me most.

I will never know the ultimate outcome of the battle we tried to fight, never know what other friends and loved ones were lost or what terrible cost exacted…but I do know that none could have paid so devastating a price as the one you've been forced to tender. You blame yourself for my untimely death, though it was my own choice to stand at your side. You lament the mistakes of the past we sought to make amends for and failed, grieve over the innocent lives cut short in the aftermath of our attempt, the situation now appearing hopeless. And you must face it all alone when your unique state of being drags you unwilling back into the world of the living again, sending you where I can no longer follow.

There is a fleeting vision, like a wisp of fever dream...of being with you one more time to face unspeakable evil, wanting desperately to give in to the desire to ignore the fate of the world and seize a second chance to stay with you. It holds an ache that can never be soothed, the pain of another parting, the strange certainty that one of us had to make the sacrifice to save mankind and I chose to pay that price because life without you would be meaningless. Did I truly leave you a second time? Or is it simply a manifestation of my guilt, over making you wake alone again?

I fear for your footing at the edge of despair's bottomless jet-dark ocean. Whether once or twice, was my death the final fatal blow to a spirit burdened by too great a stretch of time, and a ravaged heart already made fragile by constant loss? Will the ice now seal off your soul completely, forever bar you from caring for anyone or anything, and smother the quicksilver light in your eyes that only I could ever clearly see?

I would gladly walk the burning labyrinths of Hell and bear any accompanying torture, if it would somehow lead me back to you and let me stay. But there is only featureless darkness here around me now, the whisper soft touch of your final tear damp kiss the singular sensation I can feel. How often have you been trapped in this murk…torn from life but unable to leave the world that calls to your heart and holds the ones you care for?

I'm unable to return as you do, but neither can I complete this final journey knowing you're alone and that I'm helpless to ease your pain. All I can do is rest here on the frigid black threshold of the Door between life and death, until you're finally freed from your lonely bondage and allowed to enter this realm forever. I promise to wait all of eternity for you, so that someday I can take your hand and again give you my heart, in the hope it will help yours become whole at last.

Original Version-August 12, 2009

Enhanced Version-January 30, 2012