From the gloom

Nobody knows when it will happen. Their great epiphany. The realisation that life is an accumulation of things, some important, most not. It's a sad place to find one's self, finally coming to the conclusion that it's all for nothing, in the end. What's the point in living if there is no real purpose? Most people envision their great epiphany to be enlightening, uplifting, unbounding, yet the real outcome is quite the opposite; disheartening, hopeless and grim.

This is where Bob found himself. In the grim realisation that his life, no matter how amazing it seemed, was all for nothing. Nada. Zilch. What does one do when you are filled with such emptiness? How do you proceed to live the farcical life you have and not want to end it all, right here and now?

The rope around Bob's neck felt rough and uncomfortable. He was thinking back through everything he had accumulated over the years. Knowledge, friends, family, possessions. Most of it unimportant junk, his family were distant, disjointed and dysfunctional, and his so-called friends were too busy for a desperate, hopeless soul like Bob.

He took the step and the room started to slowly fade into darkness. Images were racing through his head of his life's work. His family, his accomplishments, his regrets. All of his memories seemed to play back in slow motion, layered one on top of another, on top of another. Then nothing.

A figure appeared in the gloom that had swarmed around him. It reached out and took his hand and the room swam back into focus. He breathed, hard, for a minute or two. looking around he saw the rope had been cut and tossed onto the floor. The figure in the room, he realised, was a police officer. He was calling out to him "Sir! SIR! Can you hear me?" The officer's voice seemed distant, the blurt of mechanical voices from his radio, incomprehensible.

Bob tried to reply, but he couldn't manage it. His throat was sore and his head felt light. He tried to lift an arm to gesture that he was alright but they were like lead. A few more minutes passed before the paramedics arrived. They did their checks and got him on the gurney to take him away.

His true epiphany came on the way to the hospital. Someone must have known. Someone must have cared. How else would the police have found him? Bob wept. That is something he had not done for years. He wept, publicly, realising that the only true thing in life is love. Someone loved him enough to want him around. Someone loved him enough to be concerned about his welfare. He was loved by someone and, in the end, that is all that mattered to him.

The greatest epiphany that one can have is knowing they are loved. It doesn't all have to be for nothing.