Purgatory

By that New Years Eve, what would be his 23rd, his world had come completely crashing down. Before Thanksgiving the castles were burned, the princesses gone, and by Christmas the high horses, long diseased, were all dead and rank around him. All of his dreams and aspirations, all of his expectations and delusions of grandeur had become the spear through the heart of his reality. Ever since his early youth, when his grandparents plucked him from the devastatingly abusive hands of his father, who had satisfied more than just his anger upon the mind and body of his son, the young man had always carried not only that burden, not only that emotionally crippling trauma, but, more tragically, a sense of entitlement. The world had owed him. God had owed him. Love itself owed him. The vividness and even most of the memories the horrors he had faced in his youth were long faded, but although he had always told himself he would not let the past define him, he still wore the scars, and now he knew that, among many other factors, it had been that false sense of strength, of invincibility, that had brought him to this end. His whole life he had blamed his youth; Blamed the hands, the mind, and the corruptness of his father for his shortcomings; and at the same time refused to face them. He Had always refused to accept what seemed to be the inevitable.
He had spent his youth building an impenetrable wall made of hatred, distrust, and anger, and had expected the world to come crashing through that wall to his rescue. He had expected the world to fight his fights for him and give him everything that was good in life with ease, being that he had gone through so much already. Instead, in his stubborn pride he had sat and watched as the world turned its back on him and left him sitting on the floor of his cold empty home, completely stripped of all that had defined him. There was nothing but a shell of man, alone in a two story coffin with a bottle of whiskey, a rifle that had seen more attention in the past few weeks than in the course of the three years it had been in his home, and more demons than hell itself could hold. He poured a glass of whiskey and picked up his pen.
Pride, hope, and joy had abandoned him during the last two months, as had everything else. But he couldn’t blame them. He would have left too. He had nothing to offer. He had a diseased heart, an ungrateful, self-righteous personality, no self-esteem, no courage (as was proven even more so by the unused rifle) and a slight veterans pension to live off of. A pension he felt he didn’t even deserve, because he had never accomplished anything great for his country there either. He was getting that because of his diseased heart. If that was supposed to be a blessing, it disgusted him. He had lost everything he had loved throughout his life, and it seemed it was all his fault. He even neglected his hobbies. School had been going downhill, even after quitting his job (for the first time ever) to focus on his studies (his health had demanded that he chose one or the other). What family he had was slipping further away, and everything he had thought he was doing right, was the complete opposite of what he intended. It seemed to him that he was one of Gods chosen Damned. Yes, he was a man of God to an extent. He had his beliefs against church, but always knew that there was someone up there. Whether that someone was mocking him, or just didn’t see him, he didn’t know. But he knew there was something.
He had known there was something wrong, and that he had to make some changes for quite some time, but didn’t know where to begin; Especially when his previous attempts at correcting everything left him even worse off. He had tried prayer, he had tried opening up to complete strangers. He had tried writing poem after poem. He had tried to take his mind off of all of his failures completely, only to be even more severely reminded that he had never accomplished anything but that wall he had built.
The wall. The only thing he had ever built ‘with his own two hands’, was at first his best friend. In his younger days he had prided himself on needing nothing, and no one. He had been the carefree, careless bachelor that was satisfied with his life behind that wall, oblivious to what might lie on the other side. But for months, maybe even a few years, he had known he had to break that wall down, and he tried. Every day, from sun up to sun down and sometimes all through the night he tried, but it all still seemed hopeless. Hopeless because he had already squandered, wasted, ruined, destroyed, or pushed away everything he had tried in vain to convey his love to and for. It wasn’t that he didn’t love, or couldn’t, it was that he didn’t know how to convey it. From behind his wall he had never seen, or rather, allowed himself to see any good example of human relations. He had never seen how true lovers treated each other. How true family loved one another, much less what a man should do for someone he loves, or even what it meant to be a man. He had never known that it was ok to ask for help. And now all seemed too late. He was nearly 24, and had nothing but a half run down home, a bad heart, two dogs he couldn’t rouse himself to play with, and a rack of guitars that sung the saddest songs the world would never hear, when he could touch them.
He had had a few friends, but felt like he hadn’t been much of a friend either. Those friends had had his back many times before, but he felt like he had never been there for any of them. Never done anything of measure to be worthy of some ones friendship. Never even knew how. He could remember times his friends had come in the middle of the night, through hell and high water to him, and he hadn’t ever returned the favor. He had tried to make new friends, several times over, but always came off the wrong way, always pushed them away, either out of some sort of jealousy or the fact that seeing a happy group of friends had all but confused him. He had had no idea of how to interact with people in any sort of social manner, even when good people had done everything they could to include him and make him feel welcome. Now he could do nothing but dream of being able to fix all of the wrongs, to make everything better; hopeless in the wake of his mistakes. Now he could just sit in the dark and waste away with his whiskey, staring into emptiness, because it pained him to see anything happy. It pained him to see a happy couple, to see a smiling face, to see friends having a good time. All of that pained him even more than sitting in his house, listening to nothing but the wind howl against the walls, and the dogs pleading for attention. The Chosen Damned Indeed, he constantly reminded himself. He took a drink and grabbed his guitar, trying to put music to a newer piece, not knowing whether to call it, or anything he wrote, poetry, prose, or just plain shit, but it seemed to help sometimes.
II
A thousand times he reminded himself that he wasn’t the only one to struggle through this. A thousand times he remembered his promise to himself (that he had never kept), that the world would be his, and that he would earn everything with his own two hands. A thousand times he poured out all of his hatred and pride, taking his rage out on that ever eternal wall, but barely made a scratch. A thousand times he tried to make himself believe it wasn’t him, that it was not his fault things were the way they were. But that sort of thinking would have contradicted his lifelong belief that a man and his life is what he makes it. It was by that same creed that he was broken. It was that belief that was destroying him. He had never been a man of karma, or any such thing. But it seemed that the entire world was out to destroy him, and he just wasn’t strong enough to overcome it. Oh well, he thought, they say some just aren’t born with what it takes to make it in the world; and then he would pour himself another glass of whiskey and stare at his ever enticing rifle, glancing away briefly to see if there was a message on his phone, knowing it was hopeless, as everything else. Another glass of whiskey, thinking of how Hemingway must have felt, another sad song in the background, and the pain never ceased. Some just aren’t good enough. The words rang in his head over and over. Why should he be any different? His so-called father hadn’t been good enough, and his fathers birth parents, the ones who had given him up, hadn’t been good enough, so why should fate shine any different on him? There was no reason. No reason at all. Another glass of whiskey. Although he had a strong distaste for science, he was a man of genetics, fashioned into such by the proof that he constantly provided himself. The nights grew darker, and lonelier, and sleep never came. He would drink himself to sleep only to wake up a few hours later screaming at the sky, looking to his side, once again hopelessly. The nightmares were constant, and so horrible that he began to prefer to stay awake as long as possible and dwell with the demons than let them take hold of his dreams.

The dreams; they were more brutal and painful than the last every time he closed his eyes. Dreams of what was, of what could have been, and what should be. Vivid details of profound happiness and joy, of good times and laughter. He dreamt of all those sleepless nights with his love, the one he had hoped (and believed) was curing him, and that would be there for him, and that he could be there for; so many happy, unforgettable memories. He dreamt of how happy he was when she had picked him up from the airport. And of how he had changed the date of his return just to get to her faster, leaving behind that great escape to germany he had always wanted early because he couldn’t stand another day without her. Then his dreams would slowly façade into the recent months when they lost touch, and didn’t know how to talk to each other. How he had failed to hold on to the one most important thing he had ever known, how he should have drawn closer to her at night when she asked but didn’t out of his own selfish need for absolute comfort. and then suddenly the dream would turn into what he believed hell was supposed to be. Everyone he had ever loved, everyone he had ever wronged, lined up to stab and lash out at him as he was strung up helpless and pleading; Cursing him for a failure and a nothing; Flames, and demons, ghosts, thousands of voices at once calling from the darkness, cursing him for damned; and always, in the midst of those voices, he heard hers the loudest. Heard her screaming at him. Screaming at him for failing. Sometimes he would wake before the nightmare part, but when he did it seemed what hurt the most was that he even woke at all. He would have preferred to have stayed in the dream, or the nightmares, or even just died and been done with it. He would reach over and grab the nearly empty bottle of whiskey and swallow a few pills, letting both sit in his mouth for minutes, reminiscent of the bitterness of his life. And while he exchanged prayers for vain glimpses over to his phone, back and forth, and sometimes, even rarer, he would trade pen and guitar for sleep.

The days rolled on, and he withdrew from the world more each day. He woke up trembling every morning clutching what used to be her pillows, unable to get out of bed. He would lie for hours thinking of all the things he should have known to do. Like send flowers even when she said she hated them, like rush to open the door for her even if she was on the right side, like taking her to do things more often just to spend a spontaneous moment with her. But as he had constantly proven, he couldn’t continue to keep going the extra mile. He thought what he had been doing had been enough, and that it might have been her that needed to give back. But it was exactly that ideal that had driven them apart. Now he was realizing that the man in him should have never fallen prey to that ideal, should have never let her leave. Now he was realizing, in full effect, what his destiny was causing him. It hadn’t been the first time he failed at love, but it was the most devastating. It was the slap in the face he had needed since his youth. The days kept creeping by without joy, and he always ended them with a glass of whiskey. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it didn’t, and he just held his rifle and sat at the end of the bed for hours, after he had finally moved his back into the home. Sometimes he would say to himself tomorrow is going to be different. Tomorrow I will fix everything; but he knew better, and so did everyone else. He picked up his trembling pen again, knowing that no one would ever read, much less understand, any of it.

He was 24 now, almost 25, had nothing going for him and was completely alone. He poured himself another glass and thought I am the chosen damned. His songs and ramblings sometimes eased the pain momentarily, if he could put words and music together. Other times the failure just made it worse.