A Voice Unheard- Part I: Prose

The Lone Man

The old man opened the door after fumbling about in his pocket, for a few minutes. He trudged in, his heavy boots making the wooden floorboards squeak under his weight. They were old as he was...in every way. Despite his age and all his weariness, he continued his work that he had set himself over three decades ago-To find the man that had set him on his lonely path. The man that had taken the one thing that mattered the most to him away. The man that had caused him to age faster than a man normally should. The man that had crippled him, by destroying his heart and soul, shattering them to a million unhinged pieces. The man pulled the trigger of a gun that not only killed his wife, but also his heart. He walked past his wooden dining table that had the same one chair and that had been there for the last thirty years...old and rickety. Beside his dining table was a small, there was a box shaped refrigerator that wasn't very big. He knelt as low as he could as he opened it to retrieve a cold unopened bottle of beer. He looked at it lovingly and smiled as he sat down for a drink.

As he drank each sip slowly, he sifted through all the thoughts that he had ever had, one by one...trying to understand it all. I have lived a bitter life. He decided, after going through hundreds of thoughts, memories and dreams. After sipping the last drop of the bottle, he placed the bottle down on the table and rose. But the one memory was by far the most painful. That one act, that one mistake made, that one act of murder....destroyed and eradicated all the happiness that was in my life...he reflected as he walked towards his room. Painfully he climbed the stairs that led to his room as he reminisced some more. The murder of his wife had set of a chain of events. For starters the old man began obsessing revenge so much so that it drove his daughter away. Just like her father she was distraught and broke. She felt like a part of her had died with her mother. She was bitter and angry and hurt. The whole world had collapsed on her...caving in on her, leaving her in surroundings of discord and uncertainty.

Despite all her angst, her age did not betray her. Being an adolescent, one would have expected her to act irresponsibly and recklessly. But no, she had managed to pull herself together and that helped her to hold herself together. She managed to find that calm and composure that unfortunately did not rub off on her father...he remained unwell, depressed and lost in his own world. She knew she couldn't live like this. So she called her aunt, her mother's older sister and made arrangements to move. Her aunt was as broken as she was, but she too managed to make all the preparations, all the while reassuring the old man that his daughter would be safe and well. So it was on one very sad autumn day, his daughter Louise left.

"Take care dad." Louise had said, as she had kissed him goodbye, leaving with her aunt Molly and her uncle Jared. After that the only times that old Patrick saw his daughter were on holidays and family get-togethers. And these were events that he grudgingly attended and only with the intention of seeing his daughter. His dear, dear Louise. Patrick had confined himself to the two bedroom apartment that he had acquired shortly after his daughter moved away. The small dingy, basement room that was grandly known as an apartment, was on 5th avenue.

He rarely ever came out into the open after Bessie's death. And if he did, it was only to buy his "Sustenance", namely varied brands of alcohol , some junk food and pizza. Always the same double pepperoni supreme from the same pizza shop-Al's Pizzeria, that was just across the street. As time rolled on, so did his youth that went away in a flash-or so it appeared to him. He was left broken, overweight with not a penny to his name and perpetually "On the verge" of killing himself. The one thing that kept him alive though all those troublesome moments was Bessie's memory. When he needed money, she came to him in a dream coaxing him to get a job. When he was on the edge of the bridge threatening to jump off, it was her voice that rang in his head telling him that it wasn't worth it. And on all those mornings that he woke up drunk and with a pounding headache, it was her voice that forced him to sober up and get to work. Ha! She was worth more dead than alive...he'd listened to her more in the past thirty years when she was dead, than in their seventeen years of marriage. And of course there were also those nights when he moaned out loud how alone and forgotten he was....yet again Bessie came to him, telling him to go out and smell the fresh air. The funniest part was that every time Bessie came to him with a solution for every one of his problems, he listened to her...not even doubting her for a second, and not doubting himself for imagining her.

No, she's real. He would tell himself, convincing himself that she was no illusion and that he hadn't made her up of hallucinated. He scratched his greyed hair. He sat down on the edge of his bed, and gazed lovingly at the photo of his wife, that sat on his bedside table. She was so beautiful and so happy in the photo. Placing it down again he lifted up a yellow envelope and kissed it.

"Oh Lou, I hope you understand...well you probably will, you're much older now. You have your own family and all...and I am so proud of you for that. It's just that I can't take it anymore honey. This life has taken its toll on me..." he said out aloud to the shadows that crisscrossed his dark room mercilessly. Laying it beside him, he got up and walked over to a chest of drawers and opened one drawer. He pulled out a beautiful silver and white gun. The gun that had after a huge struggle managed to avenge his wife's death. And now the gun that would unite the two of them together again. After thirty long, hard and lonely years. He smiled, for the first time in a long time. He was going to meet her again...in a beautiful place...a safe place. A place where they couldn't be separated ever again. He sighed again, releasing a cloud of steam.

"Bessie honey, a few months after you died...I wrote this for you. And I wanna read it to you, coz' I know you're here with me, as you always have been." Patrick said. Then without lifting a sheet of paper or anything he began reciting it aloud...for memory.

"I stand alone,

Cold unfed and mentally unwell

I stand alone

Wretched, weak and emotionally drained

In a desert oh so still

Dry winds blow in gusts every now and then

I cry bitterly for help

But who will come to the land of lost souls?

I remain alone; exhausted and alone

Walking along the same path repeatedly

I remain unchanged in the decades to come

As a fortress unchanged by war

As the years , months and time pass me by

I wonder whether this is all an illusion

Trickery of my ever aging eyes

A lie that is not meant to be

But through all this one thing is always true

It is a true fact, a sad fact

That I stand alone"

He wiped his teary eyes and sniffed sadly, as hot and wet tears streamed down the old man's crinkled face. He looked at the wall with a dazed look on his face. He looked at his watch and smiled as more tears fell down. It's time. He thought.

"Bessie, it's all over honey. I'm coming back to you. My work is over and this time don't you stop me.!!" He whispered wiping his eyes again. A cold breeze blew through the window making the curtains flap violently. A ray of moonlight entered the room and Patrick looked up.

"Come to take me personally, have you Bessie? You were always this thoughtful, to everyone. I remember." He added chuckling to himself. He lifted his trembling hand, to his head and felt the sharp cold jab of the gun as it touched his head. Closing his eyes, he sighed as thoughts swam randomly in and out of his head. Years of insane obsession, gluttony, loneliness, anxiety, hate and anger would end now. Loneliness had driven him insane and gave him feelings of death. Almost every day he longed desperately for his death. He closed his eyes again and squeezed the trigger. With a loud bang it was all over. Patrick Delaware, a victim of loneliness and loss...a man damned to an eternity of loneliness...was dead.