life raft

The years of solitude had been occupied by duties and by noise, so much that he never noticed how they receded and mounted up. But everyone he has loved is gone, or gone away. There is no depth of friendship for him. He has cause to understand the depth of the ocean.

Now the flood has come. He looks upon the desolation of the world and wonders that his craft is empty. No partner remains for him to gather in. He sails over a world filled with life and knows he is unsuited for it. He dives in now and then, and rises cold and wet. He shivers in his soul, and finds no warmth. The tide has swept away all hope of towers he thought to build. No shore is left, and his world is peopled by phantoms.

The man he is leaves no trace. He is the darkness of a blinking eye. His power is of the breeze on waves, slight movements, unnoticed or soon forgot. He plots no course. No matter -- sun and stars remain obscured, and what places he remembers have washed away. Sky and sea remain a single hue -- gray and dark alone mark the passage of the days. The air is empty, the surface of the deep is bare. Only the wind weeps.

His bones have turned to glass, his teeth to sand. His flesh fuels the slow fires of time and he feels his life burning to ashes in a lightless flame. If only there were heat. If only there were light.

If there is meaning, he finds it in the wind.



J