Amputation

A cold night. Rain. Artificial light. Artificial – everything. Excluded. Looking in, at where you live. Pardon me . . . ‘lived’. The diametric perspective is more haunting than it is daunting.

Standing. Staring. Wondering about . . . the reasons, the initial love, the downfall, the end. There is a total absence of thought, washed away by a flood, a torrent – of feelings of helplessness, fatigue, inadequacy and death.

The light that is present is cold and biting. It conveys the message of ‘Not Welcome Here’ more than the sting of the back of a hand across your face.

Senseless. Cold. Numb. Things at the bottom of the barrel were all that could be understood. Hope lived in that building also . . . but it was ejected first.

No tears. None. Perhaps they became part of the icy stare which became a permanent part of the facial expression.

Somewhere, a clock started which kept track of the time spent shuffling along the loneliest of paths, reliving the worst episodes, viewing but not seeing the tiny marks on the ceiling at three in the morning, and the utterly aimless attempts at recovery.

Somewhere between the third and fifth month the clock sends out a notification about a slight change in temperament in the form of a relaxed memory. That can happen in a number of ways; you actually taste a morsel of food, you distinguish a melody in a song, you sense a foot not dragging as you walk, you inhale a normal-sized breath.

Still fragile, vulnerable and scared – a new, real light begins to illumine your path. There is a touch of warmth, and a piece of the letter ‘H’ shows through – ‘H’ as in ‘Hope’.

There is caution, along with fading memories. A reference point begins to emerge and you realize its importance. And in some surrealistic manner the idea of amputation is considered to possibly have positive results.

And here’s the thing . . . the door to the past can be slammed shut and locked, or left partially open. If shut completely, the reference point can be situated in the highest venue possible. Repair can take place which allows healing to make someone better than they ever could have been.

If the door is left even slightly open, the amputations may never heal, and could easily become worse. Heaviness and depression may seep back in, altering the position of the reference point dramatically.

A ‘last straw’ can produce a magnificent ‘first step’.