Conclusion

Act III Conclusion

         When he was a child Nicholas had immunity to depression, an impenetrable cocoon that kept the evils of life in check through the purest of filters. He did not have to worry about what he would make of the world; the course natural, friends inevitable and his purpose and drive sharp as a needle. Even after the unspeakable years following his mother’s death the same sort of shell remained latched to combat despair that might surpass the brink. The little voice stopped the taste of the true darkness that lies near the bottom of a bottomless pit.

         “What is purpose?” thought the man now grown. He took for granted that purpose brings fulfillment, and such a thing is not generated by its own accord. Friends were not a given even for one upper-middle class child who had schooled with hundreds of like-minded peers. “How did it come to this?” The joys of his life had decayed and fallen away leaving loneliness and the dead memories of joy that only served to deepen misery. Similar to standing outside in drab ice and looking in where companions and lovers, parents and daughters, business associates and rivals took part in the banquet of meaning and zeal.

         What good is mending such a shattered life now, half gone and dreary? There was not a single friend left for Nicholas, no one to share his feelings or guide him to the mindset of a proper adult. Indeed, still trapped in childhood his laments took a shade still darker in wake of a latching innocence that refused to fly away. “Why did they have to go away?” his inner-child asked as if expecting an answer that satisfied. The hazy images of people lost hovered in his teary thoughts each night and part of the day. The rare undulation up to complacency and neutrality only acted to remind him of how sad he had become. He prayed he wouldn’t pause in place, hunch over, and scream amidst waterfalls pouring from vacant eyes.

         Time machine—if only such a contraption existed! Not to change events as much to relive the old, to appreciate all the more the utopian aspects that were taken as the normal state on the first run through. How Nicholas yearned for a quiet conversation with Dominique under the starlit sky, to play games after school with buddies full of laughter, see the vivid hue of the light-tanned skin and red cheeks of Kari who he had planned to spend the rest of time with in a joint struggle across the rough terrain of this mortal period.

         Here the man got up from these ponderings in the Zeebean cave lit by flame and lamp where he had but a few material possessions left. One given days before: a letter of dried parchment that confirmed Dominique had in fact returned to the planet and died three years ago of infectious disease. Another, not including the very rags on his back, he did not prefer to think about in light of his new sensation of warm thoughts; so intimate that he forgot at the moment where he was so that he might relive a scene in the mind. They were always laughing, cracking jokes and smiling, at the time annoying but covertly fueling his very fire that kept him in motion. Now they were fictitious. Part of that fantasy land his innocence refused to release. They beacon him join without thought that his entrance is impossible.

           Reality came in the form of a motorized carriage some days anon when Chigun gathered enough money for the simple service of a thirty mile trip. The cabman gave an astonished look at the tattered and graying wanderer with bloodshot eyes and a livid pallor. Nicholas joined on the passenger seat and, with a silent gesture, set the drive in motion over the morning country roads of that barren region. There was an important job that only he could accomplish, with a lump in his pocket and a strangely calm demeanor, where his recently washed hair had been tied back into a ponytail with a piece of twine he chanced upon. The coach tried to strike conversation, asking “why Dacil?”

         “Always wanted to see the new Apian capital on Zebus,” said Nicholas. “Sure is fascinating.”

         “It’s also a den of thugs,” observed he, stroking a coarse beard with a plump hand.

         Nicholas did not respond, no, could not reply, and instead held a glazed stare with a quiet head and repressed emotions. They met no traffic along and when the driver next spoke it was to announce they had arrived. The fortified city with its lowered drawbridge and plumes of industrial smoke polluting the air lie ahead. Nicholas told the cabman to stop before entering for his destination was on the outskirts a mile out.

         “I should drive you there,” said he. “I thought you said you were to see the capital. Not stray from it.”

         “No, sir. Here is your payment. Now I must be off.”

         The driver did not ask further questions and would later be surprised on counting that he had received twice the fare for the short trip. Meanwhile, Nicholas had bore left from the stone walls into the lifeless orange desert with its many sand dunes. The wind at times caused him to rise up the cheap rag to prevent those tiny pellets from raining on his face.

         When he got to the collapsing old wood cottage he remarked aloud its similarity even with part of its roof removed from past sandstorms. The living area no longer had its furniture, the window broken above dirty planks and surrounded by the woodwork of the sanded walls. Then there came the short hall with its kitchen rightward, bedroom left and the supply closet straight ahead. He found some of the crates still scattered in the rectangular storage and, letting curiosity get the better of him, managed to pry the top off of one. Inside were blinders and some metal rods used to piece together who knows what. Finding only dead rodents around he retreated for the kitchen, losing interest immediately on seeing it completely caved in with beams cracked. A sticker condemnation notice pasted there suggested the house should have been demolished a month ago.

         Ending the journey Nicholas slipped into his old bedroom with a clear view of the cloudless sky. Sunbeams basked over the small nightstand still tucked in the farthest corner and the spring bed frame that had somehow lost its mattresses and quilts, most likely from theft. The man searched the one drawer of the stand to find-- faded and wrinkled-- a picture of Kari he had since forgotten about. Gasping and swallowing deep the cunning took up the photograph remembering the locket that had gone with it. So, the thieves took the metal holder in hopes of gaining some material value, but little did they know just how valuable a thing they had abandoned behind. Worth more than the riches of kings was this reminder of a body since gone; a snapshot that can never for all the time or wishes of eternity be taken again.

         Nicholas took out his pistol and forced the barrel to the bottom of his jaw. What could he do but seek comfort on that sweet, lovely thing staring back at him as if she were real? Her telling him she understood, forgiving him and promising they would be married yet: tomorrow in fact. How could he not scrutinize every fold of her dress and direction of each follicle? Not memorize at once the merry figures in the background who shared in their happiness at that moment so brief? He could only regret the blood he might mar this broken portal with and yet nothing could take the slip from his fingers. He cried out the names of his brothers, his loves and passions, and caught with newly opened eyes the parting heavens that shone so bright in that moment of power. He saw mother, father, brothers, Kari and Dominique, those from the Grass house and school, linking hands and lowering to him so he might grab hold and ascend with them to a land where time stood still.

         “I love you,” said Nicholas in blissful tears and snatched a firm hold to the closest outreached hand: that of his own inner-child who couldn’t but hide the euphoria that fabricated his very being. “My family, my loves, fuel of my flames and definer of my character,” said the man as he rose slowly from the room for the limitless horizons. There the feathered wings of each who pulled him up became palpable, himself then lifted and able to fly on his own.

         “Let us go,” said his mother, who kissed Nicholas on the cheek for the first time since he was a child. His father stated the same and embraced him with warmth and affection.

         “Let us go,” repeated Nicholas. “Let us go.” 

Act III