Frozen in the Dark

Being something of a casual insomniac in that I tend to be awake at night, when my head is at its most furious and my mind cannot stop its chattering, you would think I’d have grown accustomed to the silence the darkness brings. Save for the hum of this computer and the passing of cars, there is virtually no sound. Yet now, as I sit here in perpetual darkness with only the light of this screen to chase away the shadows, I feel…odd. It’s eerie, strange, new.

I feel alone and yet not quite. The darkness has been my home for some years, a far greater bedfellow than light ever was. Now it betrays me with this frozen quiet, this voiceless razor that cuts deep into my soul and bleeds me of all feeling, and yet I am most alive and my senses tingle with the twitch of a curtain, the creak of a floorboard. Such is the paradoxical nature of life. It’s most unsettling, hence why I sit here, awake, with half the hour passing creeping ever closer. My exposed body shivers but somehow I feel no cold – a strange, unfelt warmth is circulating me. Is it my blood? Is my body fighting back the oncoming chill? Who knows. But it matters little, I’ve grown used to this feeling – perhaps not quite to this extreme but it’s not all too different in some ways. Alas, the one change that I’ve yet to grown used to, the one change that provokes these thoughts, the one change that is forcing me awake is this new emptiness. Now that she’s gone it all seems so…transparent.

Shiva’s condition worsened through the week. I suspected it would happen but I kept on in the vain, silly hope that…well, I don’t know. I am a person of rationale and logic and yet I defied it utterly; had I been on the outside looking in I would have told myself to come face to face with the inevitable, yet as the one looking out from within I have struggled with my nature for doing that is right, for what is, with that human part that wraps you in a blanket of confused emotion. Lord how I hate it but let’s face it, one cannot deny one’s humanity, not when one is faced with something that simply brings it out.

Interesting how I can look back at how I’ve felt – and how I continue to feel – with that other side, that calculating, rational and logic-bound side. That which most everybody tends to see. So cold, so heartless and yet I am sustained. Without it I’m a broken shell, or perhaps I just perceive myself that way. I’ve never handled emotion well, not since what my first love did to me. After that it became a defense mechanism. To prevent pain inflicted by man, one must be above man. That, more or less, was the thinking. Not to be above man in the godly sense, or to be better than, but rather to rise above that which makes us act with haste and forget the world in a moment of lust or anger or fear. I have progressed much down that path, from the time I hated all to the time I hated none but still I could not forgive man for what he’d done to me. That resentment has since become…understanding, but I can’t deny that I will never trust the way I once did. A good thing I feel. I may have been sweet and innocent but naivety almost killed me. I suppose I mistook that which was my own mistake and thus my own undoing for something innate and so blamed mankind for it. Pathetic really but as I know now, my attempt to deny manhood was simply my using one part of it in order to defy it; in a literal sense, I could have painted my skin green and called myself ET for all the difference it made. I fooled only myself. Yet now as I face those emotions once again I am compelled to retreat, though not into the misanthropical form I once donned. Just, I dunno, I wish I could escape this.

Self-pity, or perhaps guilt? Maybe both. Shiva lay on my bed for so long, unable to move, at least not without sincere, deadly pain. Oh how she howled when my youngest accidentally jumped on her. Made my blood curdle, and my heart sank. She was suffering so terribly. Why did I cling on? What is it about man that we so desire to not let go and accept the truth? We don’t like change, this is, for most of us, an apparently innate fact of our being, our psyche. I can’t say I understand why; surely the pain change brings is caused only by our resistance? The more we fight, the more it hurts. What if we were to let go and just accept it? Maybe then it would all pass and we’d be much happier. Strange creatures we are. Whatever made us clearly has a sense of humour. Good. I like that in a higher power. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not then, not just yet.

For the past week I have sat by her side, leaving only to allow her to sleep or in order to be semi-social and keep up my strength with Mark’s poor excuse for food. I suppose a sense of duty compelled me; she did the same for me all these years, and now I was returning the favour when she needed it most. But that’s not what she need, not truly. I was neglecting the truest form of gratification for all she’d done in favour of mimicking her loyalty. In the end though, there can be no more denial. All it took was a glimpse of those pained eyes. She was tired and weary, from age and from her illness. Her body couldn’t cope anymore. It was shutting down, saying “no more” and I had to help her. The vet agreed that it was for the best; contrary to his hopes, and mine, her body wasn’t fighting back the wound and so it was only making things worse. With the cancer spreading her legs would have soon become so inoperable she would require amputation. It was the kindes thing to do, the only real response. I should have done it sooner as my first inclination desired but…no matter, we put her to rest before the pain came to a head. She shared with me the better part of my life – better only in terms of time; as far as quality goes, it’s open to speculation. Now the place where she usually slept on my bed is empty, even Wolf daren’t sleep on it. Strange that, how our behaviour is quite alike. I suppose then dogs do form packs and, well, humans form families; little difference lies between the two. How intriguing, the bonds we form that tie us to the world.

Ah, and back to work. I haven’t slept yet. And I intend to go in early so sleep will be out of the question. A long day lies ahead, still I have plenty to keep me occupied. I’ll be taking the rest of February off though to tend to other matters. It seems as if this month is going by painfully slowly and sadly the greater part lies ahead; funny, the relativity of time is such an amusingly cruel fiasco. On the plus side, Ryan returns home tonight. Anyway, I need to go make coffee or find some means to stop myself from having to stifle these yawns. I don’t feel tired – not truly – and yet exhaustion is creeping up on me. I hate it when that happens; your body knows you should be asleep but you’re not so it gets confused and tangled. Silly body. You’ll forgive the unusually theatrical theme of this blog but my mind is racing, as it does when at certain points of the day and night. Thus what energy would normally be placed into my writing is seeping into here.

Ah yes, coffee…