Relics...

Memories have a way of creeping up on you, over whelming you with a cruel striking pain. As you get older and older, every thought of happiness and joy takes you only into the past. That is my human condition, the curse, the infinite emptiness of consciousness, not realizing that "what is" matters far more than "what was", whatever it maybe. I know, but I still wonder.I hold these relics in my hand, reminders of a time when, after looking at the world now, feels like a mirage in the desert of my barren broken dreams. I wipe the dust from these photographs; my pets wink at me playfully as they once did. I mutter a tune I used to sing as a child, forgetting words and key...

.

"The playful pair,

Dog and cat,

Brothers in arms,

A war against calm."

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My comrades, for most of my life, riding with me into battle and at times on me, if they could help it. Sometimes on the cold winter nights I still feel them snuggling next to my feet like they did years ago. My good luck charms, following me through out my misadventures- puberty, adolescent and employment. Melding slowly into the background of my hectic life, as the years went by. Now they lie, resting and waiting, their ashes in a small wooden box, for me to join them and again ride into battle. I still remember them, and when I'm gone they will be forgotten, as will I.

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I pass the photographs into a folder, a crispy shadow of a note flutters out, a margin scribble on an ancient paper I once wrote, crumpled, experienced, bearing a message of surprise. The words, "I'm pregnant" subtly written between the lines. My sudden surprise, my suppressed yet elated joy as I paused in the middle of my conference while presenting in front of 300 people…the champagne bill that followed. My girlfriend’s message of love. Our unity’s declaration...ahh I should've married her when I had the chance, regrets...”that’s life” I tell myself. That’s life. The longing is strong, the paper reeks of that perfume I hated, I could do with another sniff, I sniff again, yes, its still there.
.

I set aside the fragrant memories for a second as my eyes catch a withered old diary. A memoir of youthful righteousness and guilt that I dragged along with me through my formidable unemployed years, taking notes of all the people who'd helped me, in my naïve belief that someday I would repay them all. Over the years the pages proving just as incompetent as me in doing their job, incapable of containing the ever-increasing thanks I owed to the world, each due payment surpassing the life of the person to whom it was owed, a debt into the next world, or life, or darkness, as it maybe; I still carry it proudly.
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I look around me once more, my life has gathered at my feet, the books, the papers, the photos, the music, and the infinite accumulations of a life’s attempt at living. A rejection to time and its efforts, well...maybe a well fought failure. At this point both of us old and weary. I think to gather these memories once more, to another world, another place, another room, somewhere I haven’t been. Life isn’t over, but there isn’t enough left for me to keep the artifacts of the old ones around, as I approach the end I have no use of those memories, of things forgotten long ago.
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Or should I try to remember it all again? I don’t know, I fear I may lose this grasp of the intermitted happiness I enjoy in my memory and I see in the shadows of the future, everything I once cared for dissipating, evaporating out of my soul into nothingness and me with it.