Rantings of a Mind Trapped in Purgatory

I met a one legged cricket today and understood its place, as it is mine just the same. He too must’ve cheated death and is now my only companion left behind here to remain, surrounded with suffering in purgatory! Neither alive nor dead, neither of us a purpose any longer and made to witness our own demise. Cursed to die a little everyday. Cheating death is no blessing, it’s not disguised to be one either, although we seem to take great comfort in telling ourselves otherwise.

If you’re unlucky enough to ever look death in the face and refuse it’s hand… you will bare witness to death’s wrath as this act is displeasing to the reaper. For you’ve put a ripple in the design death itself planned and it becomes unable to rest, the reaper, unable to stake claim to your soul will in fact, claim the rest of your days in purgatory, looking with great pleasure upon your daily torture. When death comes knocking again. I will not refuse his cold hand of comfort and eternal peace. I have lived that mistake long enough… perhaps I’m weaker than I thought myself. Do such trivial questions matter in purgatory? I am reminded of those sweet words which dripped from pen to paper by Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death, Death Kindly Stopped for Me” I spend my months in purgatory waiting and wanting death to ride again. I will follow.

Seeing my only friend there, the one legged cricket drag himself into the abyss of nothing, gave cause to curiosity. Why did he bother? Doesn’t he realize that the more he struggles, the closer he gets to another ambush that awaits? Another betrayal? He carries himself on false hope. The worst of all betrayals! “Let the reaper reap my friend,” I shouted, fully aware the critter couldn’t possibly understand my words or my motives. But, I felt a need to try. Perhaps the kindest thing I could’ve done, and maybe perhaps even should have done, was to take pity on the poor critter’s soul and crush him. Alas, I am not God nor do I pretend to be. And so it goes… the little guy drug himself on, without a chance in the world of making it much longer. Even without my help to hurry the inevitable along. I haven’t seen my old friend since. Which now gives way to a more morbid curiosity in me. Did he finally find death and it’s freeing design again? Did he know what awaited him? Perhaps he did very much realize the closer he drug himself toward the open abyss, the closer he drug himself toward peace, freedom of this place. Could it be the cricket knew more than myself… he discovered his way out of purgatory and didn’t seem to care much about what may or may not be afterward!

Alas, I am left behind both humbled and lonely, left behind by my friend, the one legged cricket! Just another betrayal, another let down, another day here in purgatory. Another piece of me died again today. “Goodbye friend, may death’s design be kind to you,” I shouted from my front porch, but my friend, I’m sure, was nowhere near to hear me, just in case he did understand my words. Was anyone for that matter? Could anyone even see me anymore? Without the striking look of pity one is sometimes seen through? I despise that look as I’ve come to know it, in my time of grief, so well.

Aww, and the crickets start to sing. I once thought it beautiful and a source of peace, now haunts me from the distances that surround me. Hearing the critters sing their once unsung song, I find my thoughts turning again to my friend the one legged cricket and am tormented with the knowledge of his disappearance. Perhaps if I saw the little guy once again striving to live, I could draw some sense of hope from at least his will to live, couldn’t I? Hope is not an plentiful resource from where I sit here in purgatory. It always turns out to be an evil ruse whenever I seem to catch even a glimpse of it. I damn that word and it’s false security. Even through the thought and as it passes, I know this will never be again. For if it is to be at the very least kind, my friend, the cricket, has already found his peace. He drug himself until he happened upon it. “Good show old friend, good show,” I think to myself. And still I sit, paralyzed with grief of my former life that once was, yet is never to be again. I’ve worked so hard to gain back what was familiar only to have it burn down before my very eyes. And the reaper laughs at my pain. How dare I deny him my soul the first time he came calling! I stay still. Unable to make a move as I don’t know what move, if any, to make. I am lost in purgatory with no Knowing of direction or absolution. I can’t get out of my punishment. I am lost in purgatory and am likely doomed to remain here for the duration of my sentence, which one can only assume is up once the reaper has grown tired of my suffering. Dear Lord, let this come soon.

If one is lost, one should stay still, stay where they are. But, I don’t believe anyone is looking for me. And no one could save me if they were. My place seems to be where I am and where I am is a shadow of what once lived and now surrounded with darkness. All for refusing the hand of death which can only be described now, after several months in purgatory, the hand that will bring peace to a tortured soul. Mine.