To Eternity

     Emptiness.  That was all there was now in his life.  The house had been empty for a year and all that lingered behind were dust & old memories.  

     A man sat with a piece of paper lined at a desk; a pen curled within his gnarled fingers, turning the blank sheet to a letter bearing the scars of his melancholy, the words he would leave behind to the world.  

     The pen-tip scraped against the page - mirroring what he had long whispered in his heart.  "I love you" he scribbled in a long-fluid cursive.  The man paused for a moment before his hand began to rise, trying to wipe the water away: a tear just barely managed to escape him, becoming part of his sullen words. 

A clock chimed in the darkness: "Ding!" it cried out, its hands peaked upon a fresh hour, signalling the dawn of a new day. "Ding!" it continued, and the man who had slumped in his chair poised himself and began writing once more.

     He was going to die.

"Ding!"

The man finally laid his pen to rest; setting it beside the letter.  He rose from his chair without another word and paced a few feet across the room, stopping by the door-way.  His hand grasped a picture sitting atop an old brown dresser. A smile fell across his lips as his fingers swept across the glass. A deep almost pained breath came as he set the picture back on the mantle, his smile had left him.

"Ding" the clock chimed again.

"Paige…" he stammered hoarsely, "please don't think less of me."

        The man strode from the room: his heavy footfalls causing the wooden planks of the floor to creak beneath his feet, leading him down the hallway into darkness.  

"Ding," the cold sound of the clock raced after him.

Some men die in war, others die by disease, but it was the gravest of maladies that would claim the life of this man, Calen Omden: loss.

Calen moved into the kitchen; the shadow of yesterday still in his head.  The light of the moon barely managed to sneak its way beyond the sad purple curtains that whispered against a mournful breeze.  The house was a beacon of memories.  Wherever he looked new ghosts would arise, re-enacting treasured moments that came alive in the emptiness and yet when he reached out to live in those moments the specters of his past would fade away, leaving only regret.

"Ding" the bell struck again.  The noise of the chime had faded.  It was the sixth bell.

"God…" Calen said at last, looking about his home; trying to find something  to focus his eyes upon, to try and quell the pain building in his heart. Yet everywhere he turned he found a new picture that reminded him of the all that he had lost; of all that he would lose in time.

"Ding" the bell struck again.  As if to fill the void of silence left behind by that one spoken word.

"I cannot understand," he rasped out, choking on the words he tried to say. His head craned against a nearby wall; his eyes closed shut as he spoke, trying to fight back the tears that formed at the corner of his deep, blue eyes.  

"What have I done to deserve this?" he opened his eyes again slowly, the fight had been lost. His words had left him broken. "What did I do to deserve losing her?"

"Ding" the bell struck again.  

Calen sobbed openly now.  His hands trembling upon the brown trim that surrounded the corner of the milky white walls; shadows flickered in the moonlight, beginning to dance across the room as his voice rose higher.

"How could you…HOW COULD YOU!?" his voice was a defiant boom, reaching a crescendo as his leg lashed out suddenly, causing a chair to spill across the kitchen floor.  Still the shadows danced; the light caught in the rustling curtain bent upon the floor throwing dark patterns over the chips of wood left behind by his anger.

"Ding" the end was coming.

Calen gripped his fingers tightly within his palm. His knuckles becoming a ghostly white as he sank slowly to the floor between the kitchen and the living room. The strength of man could never reach the seat of heaven.  He set his hands together one last time in desperate prayer.

"Ding" the bell struck again, only two remained.

"Please watch over my daughter, Rachel…she will need you, lord, as I needed you.  Please do not let her fall through your hands." Calen put a silent foot-step forward into the living room, where the shadows of the night danced across the floor and upon the walls: he had made his choice.

"Ding" the bell called out solemnly from down the hall, there was only one more left to follow and then all would fall again to silence, as it had been.

Calen opened the door of a cupboard, grasping at the gun that lay in the back of the drawer; the metal glinted threateningly in the moonlight, but its voice called out to him, whispering the word, "salvation."  He reeled the gun suddenly against his head, nuzzling the barrel up against his temple: the cold steel put his fluttering heart at ease.

He took a deep breath, one final breath.  His eyes raced about the room, his ears filled with the voices of the past that had been trapped within these walls: of a child's laughter, of a woman's pain, of people clapping, relatives shouting, hooting and calling, and then it all fell to silence the moment his finger squeezed the trigger.  The cacophony of memories that flooded through his head ended as quickly as it had begun: turning all to black.  It was over.

"Ding" the clock struck one last time.  Its hollow chime carried through the halls coldly; letting all fall back to quiet reverence as Calen lay upon the wooden floor.  His pain bled out; showing the world what he had bottled up for the last eighteen years.

Men do not speak of loss, or pain, or grief- but they are always there.  Men bottle up these feelings, so that loved ones might be spared the pain.  What does a man do with these feelings when those loved ones no longer need him? He bears that pain still, till the weight of such dark emotions finally crush him.

The pain was gone.  The weight lifted.  The silence, ever-lasting.