Life is Pain

The creases had grown less iridescent over the years. His fading frame, the only thing standing in the way between him and his sweet release, crouched lower with each pulse of his faltering heart. He sighed, the heavy kind. His breath left his lips shallow and misty.

It was a cold morning, dull and ending, just as similar to his memory. He had no idea what had happened to the world around him. It was a blur, a welcome one. He looked up from his chair and gazed around the room. Brown, dusty, dead. The life that was once in it was long gone, the memories, faded.

He was hungry. Not for the grumbling of his belly, but for the pinnacle at his heartstrings. Oh well, he thought, I could always recall the last meal we had.

And recall he could.

It didn’t last long. His face got wet with each stroke of the soft black box in his lap. Memory, the stranger in the sheets. It was the hunger that made him garner the last ounce of strength in him to open the box. It was the will to read one more word of it that got him through it. Just…once…more…

He couldn’t. His fingers lay flaccid and wrinkled by the edge of his seat, his eyes turning dimmer with each wasp of the wind.

Henry was dead.

An old man in his chair he died, a white-yellow parchment in hand with a thin pin stuck at the corner, loosely falling and gently resting by his feet.

It was three days before he was found by a weary traveler in need of boarding. A decent burial was had in the little patch of flowers old Henry had fixed up in his aging years. The sun hung low, crouching harder in red and belching out enough radiation to roast a roach. The traveler, done with the ceremonial rights done in the days of yore, took his thick Hazmat-layered coat off and laid down his hat.

It was nearly time for supper. He walked and hammered a dusty can of old beans he had found in storage downstairs. The stove cooked it nice and slow, the aroma wafting in kind all over. The weary traveler looked round the room and found his quarters worthy of a night’s rest.

The old man’s chair swung, as if his spirit soared in waves with the bean stock.

The traveler felt the urge to walk and sit by the old man’s chair, to see his room as he saw it. By now he had gathered his name, Henry, and he toasted a spoonful to old Henry before his eyes caught something on the floor.

He wondered if it had been there long before, or it had fallen from one of the tables as he moved the body. He slurped the spoon in nice and warm, and bent to pick up the piece of paper that held within it curiosity unbound.

Minutes passed, and the traveler, too heartbroken to go on, sat on Henry’s chair and broke down in tears. He spent the night humming old songs to old Henry, singing him to sleep in the devilish water and heavenly wind of his ancestors.

Come morning, the traveler placed the paper close to where Henry’s head would lie. He felt it best to honor his spirit by reading him his letter. The white-yellow letter that made a man from war, big enough to break necks of steel, strong enough to lift weights in guns and bags of his comrades along enemy lines to weep like a child. It was necessary before he left, of course, that he did this last rite.

The wind hollowed and the birds wept silently, as the fierce traveler sat by the gravestone and began his ode.

“Hello Henry,

I hope this finds you well my love. It feels like it has been eons since we last spoke to each other. More than that, I feel it my duty to tell you of how much I miss our late night talks. Even the awkward silences seem dearer to my heart than ever.

My feet are to blame, I know, for that day we made love by the top of Baba’s house, when the lights shone from the sky to declare the song you sang for me till I slept, you were to leave. The army must have its best man for war, I always say. You left before I could give you this pin, you see.

It was our keepsake, my dear Henry. But alas, my feet.

I wasn’t fast enough my dear. You were already in your uniform, in the train billowing black smoke. I ran, but the wheels of the long snake were faster. I cried, knowing our lips would stay for too long without each other’s companion.

No matter, I know you are well. I know you are healthy and fighting for us like the man I know you are. You remember the song we sang together, back when our hips were joined and our moans high into the sunset? Do you?

I do. I know the words by heart. I sing them to you each night my wedding approaches. Baba said it would be best for me to wed. No one wants a hag for a wife.

I have run away for us Henry. I live in the wilderness now, where technology is odd and pencils are really short and funny. The men here are nothing like you. They treat us like slaves, but I smile inside, knowing I will see you soon.

My heart points to you my love. You better be eating well, or else I will pinch you for every kilo you have lost without me. I wish I could see you laugh again. These nights get longer without your heart at my chest, without your laughter in my mind.

I know our children someday will laugh at our stories. At our tales of love and distance, and how we made it.

I know I will see you soon my Henry. I will wash your coat and make you food in my dreams till then. Be safe, for us.

Yours beyond Death,

Terry.”

The traveler wailed silently once more, in realization of what the old letter meant. The date on the stamp meant seventy years had passed since the end of the war. Terry and Henry never saw each other again.

The old man, old Henry, down in the earth in his old age, had received the last correspondence of his truest twin-soul. To his last breathe, he thought of her, and no one else.

The traveler wiped the last of his tears and rose. He puffed in, then out, and swallowed a salute in order. A bird in the crackling forests croaked, thanks to the ever growing radiation on the earth, as if old Henry had given a bow in thanks of his last ode.

He picked his bag up. In one of the pockets, a litter of browning letters from his Gladys took most of the space. He sighed, and shook his compass. He was going home to her. Home is where he belonged.

Henry’s blessing following his footstep, the young traveler walked away into the crimson sun’s path, counting down the weeks to the end of the planet and all life as he knew it.

Life is pain, but love... love is crueler.