Last Goodbye

Last Goodbye

I felt the red, hot tears stream down from my own eyes. I felt them on my cheek, my jaw, my neck. The feeling was not pleasant. But, it was not uncomfortable either. Lies. Everything… all lies.

I leaned back on the cool stone wall and looked up. What was once just a mere drizzle a while ago had turned in full force to a storm. It hurts. The wind howled through the trees, and the raindrops fell like a waterfall on everything. The cold froze me, but it was not the cold that was chilling my core. The freezing cold inside me felt far more like a blizzard than a mere storm. It was violent, unending, and painfully real. Compared to it, the storm that raged without me was more a comfort than a threat. Through the rain, I could see the trees in their golden browns and emerald greens, the grass and flowers shone like precious jewels – proof that the world had not ended; proof that life still continued. I took comfort in that vision, and in the reality of the biting cold that surrounded me. I could still feel the world. I was not dead.

The rain drenched me as I sat on the ground, my back to an old, decrepit wall. It may have once been a part of some marvellous structure, but not anymore. Now, no one ever noticed it. It was overgrown with vines, and weeds sprouted from the soil accumulated in its cracks and crevices.

I felt like I knew it completely, this wall. I closed my eyes and imagined what it once may have been part of, and then what it was now, and I smiled. Yes, this wall and I were just the same. Not that I was once a marvellous being. No. I would never presume myself to be such. It’s just that once, some time long ago, for it seems so long ago to me now, I, too, was whole. I, too, had once been complete. And it is this completeness in the past and the event that we both lost a large part of ourselves that endeared me to this crumbling thing. We, two, were not whole now.

My tears were gone now. When I had closed my eyes to see the marvel that once had been this wall, I could no longer cry. My tears had run dry and I felt they would never return. But I was not at a loss by that. That was a good thing because, now with no more tears to shed, I could stand strong. Even though I was not whole, like this wall, I could still stand. After all, I was not dead yet.

I was not suicidal. And even after I lost a great part of myself, I still remained to be the same. I would never be suicidal. I would never be that weak. They can break me down to my last brick, but, even then, I would still stand because I would not be dead; lifeless, maybe; but not dead.

I looked at the clearing in front of me, at the silent hills beyond the valley, at the tiny glimpses of the sea. I smelled the fresh scent of newly watered greens and overturned soil. The rains raged on beyond me and within me, but they no longer touched me. I was myself but was not. I was beyond myself now; like a person looking at someone else, I watched and observed myself from within, imagining how I would look from without. I was still myself, but, at the same time, I was not.

I inhaled deeply the perfume of nature. The lush scenery before me brought me, little by little into a state of inner calm; acting more like a tin receptacle to trap the storm rather than a breeze to abate it. But, I did not mind this. The storm within in me was gone for now, and the one without me looked more beautiful than ever before. I relished the feeling. It was like a great weight was lifted from my chest. The overhanging thunderclouds that once rumbled on in my mind were replaced by sunshine and white, thin clouds located high into the blue sky. The drumming of rain drops on my skin felt like a massage.

Leaning my hand on the wall behind me, I pushed myself up and took a last long look on the wall. We were the same. And together, we would continue to stand and to move on. 

I walked towards the rolling hills beyond the valley. I would leave the empty chatter of human civilization here and now. I would leave the noise and destruction that it causes. Civilization, they say. I found that civilization to be full of nothing but destroyers and barbarians – coarse, hurtful and destructive. They use the façade of a supposedly civilized world to further their own agendas. They say that they must clear lands and break down structures to make way for civilization. But I know what they truly want: money and power. And, on occasion, destruction.

I’ve given up on that world; on the paved streets and high-rise buildings; on the electrical circuitries and machineries; on the smoke and pollution; on the complications; on the circumstances that have destroyed many things – that have destroyed me. I’ve had enough of all of that. I’m tired of all of that. For this reason, I threw away all my connections to that world. I cried my last tear for him and for them.

Now, I am leaving. And this is my last Goodbye.