REQUIEM FOR THE UNREQUITED


It seemed like the start of an Indian Summer as I made my way through the park, noisy with children. Dusk was falling with the leaves as I shuffled towards the cemetery, which adjoined the park. I often went there in search of quiet and solitude when I felt troubled, and invariably found it offered me the peace I needed.

As I passed the little cafeteria, I thought I noticed a familiar face; as I approached, I recognised a very old friend. He was perched alone at a corner table, and I was delighted to see a grin of recognition break across his grizzled walnut face. We greeted each other with great enthusiasm, and over a cup of tea, I told him how happy I was to see him again, because I had heard, on the grapevine, that he had died in the hard winter of last year.
He explained that as a gentleman of the road, his lifestyle carried many perils and hardships, and in fact, last winter, he had suffered bad exposure during the heavy snows. ‘But,’ he explained with a glint in his eye, ‘reports of my death have been slightly exaggerated.’ He went on to tell me some of his recent exploits, which I always found amazing and thrilling to listen to. For many years, even as children, we would all gather round to listen in awe and wonder at Jim’s stories, which would leave the taste of envy and adventure in our young minds.

On this occasion, however, Jim remarked that it was obvious to him that I was preoccupied and in no mood to listen to his yarns. Like a father-confessor, he gently probed my troubled mind, and slowly summed up my problem.

It was one of unrequited love. Something, Jim told me, from which he himself had once suffered from. Speaking from experience, he told me the best way to exorcise such a dilemma was to pour out one’s innermost feelings to a trusted friend, and suggested that in his situation my secret would be safe. What I had to do, he explained, was to describe in detail the lady in question, and my approach to her. He suggested that I start my narrative with a frank appraisal of my attitude to life in general.

“Well, like yourself, I explained, I suppose I am a rebel at heart; I do not follow the dictates of society or the rituals of tradition, but live from day to day. I strive for little sparks of perfection in a world of weakness and compromise. Sometimes I do get desperate, but in my quiet desperation I can be strong or I can be weak, but I do my own thinking and set my own standards. As you know, that makes me pretty average, except for one thing; since we last met, Jim, I must confess I have become a crippled soul, for I got burned, and almost devoured, in the white hot flame of love; unrequited love. Nowadays I don’t do that much; I accomplish even less, but I see no reason to live, as though life itself were a terminal cancer. I can forgive others, but not myself, and I cannot forget. From one day to the next I might find hope or happiness, but alone at night I may be overwhelmed by a tremendous crushing despair and sense of loss. I have friends who still love me, and others who admire me or even envy me, but none know my dark secret; this stigma that sucks me dry. As a rational creature, aware of my environment, I always strived for happiness, but now feel that the perfection I sensed was an illusion.
Nowadays, I no longer expect peace, or love, or even pity. Time has taught me to accept the ironic injustice of Fate, and I thank God for any childish faith I have left, and what humility it has left me. I look now for the slow acceptance of something which I do not even comprehend.”
‘Please tell me what happened,’ said Jim
“It is a while now since we parted, and I never saw her again; yet I live in pure fear of a chance encounter, for she may still have that terrible beauty in her eye, and I know that just one look would cause embers within me to spark again and slowly devour my soul.
Such perfection in my eye never had reason to walk amidst mere mortals, especially in my world, where I knew that the nature of man did not deserve, and could only destroy, such perfect beauty. In my haste, I presumed to possess this angel in body and mind. In truth, her perfection armoured her against the corrupt nature of the world, and those mortals who jostled in it for her affection and attention.

To us life was once a joyous game of chance, but now, after her passing, just the mere sound of her name brings an overwhelming sadness, and I feel no longer young. I grow sceptical, and revert to the cynicism of age. Time does not heal, and life does not erase. My pain does not grow; yet neither does it wither. Sometimes I am faced with a choking sorrow which I hide like a scar, until circumstance cruelly strips me naked, to hobble about with my crippled spirit ablaze.

I no longer hope for love or peace or pity. My anger and frustration smoulder like a slumbering volcano, and the force of my feeling lies waiting to vent its rage at the gods, for their insane, senseless injustice. Even today, so strong is my conviction that here at last I had found my soul-mate, that I imagined she was more divine than human; I built my pedestal for a Goddess carved in flesh. Now, today, no woman, no child, and no amount of money could ever hope to compensate me for my loss, my loneliness and my suffering.

Jim responded, ‘I have in my life known great physical pain that racks my body. I have known the psychedelic pain of a tortured mind, but the pain of unrequited love burns the soul like a cancerous fire, devouring truth and reason and virtue. Such crippling deformity is not one you learn to live with because it shocks with the suddenness of a summer shower: a knife of pain, a catching of breath, and total mindless confusion.’

I continued, “Amongst friends her name may be casually mentioned. It may even be another about whom they talk, and suddenly I cannot hear because a bell is booming in my brain and ringing in my ears. Then my panache crumbles away as the shield of my armour falls away to leave me staring naked at my failure and loss.
When she walked into a room, I would sometimes start laughing, such was my joy; sometimes I could scarcely breathe when she was around. In the past when I could talk to her I would mention the plans and certainty of our future. Where our children could become the blended beauty of all that best in both of us. Something that God and nature might perfect, to where a child would become the physical perfection of our total spiritual harmony. I envisaged a love so strong, so pure, that no two hearts in history would have ever tasted life, like we would live, and love, like we would share.
A sanctity that would dare surpass time and tradition to where single precious moments would transcend all the every-day feelings of normal people in a normal world. Where just a glance would offer peace and hope and trust, where every word would utter the promise of heaven. Afterwards I realised instinct had warned me that never again would I taste such love if I failed to seize it at that particular point in time. A love like mine was so rarefied and pure that I knew full well it could touch me only once in a single lifetime, even if I lived a million years or died a million deaths.”

Jim replied, “On reflection do you sometimes think things could have been different had you not neglected some point, or omitted some trivial detail in the relationship. Like a diver on the seabed, using up the last of his air, with just a blunt knife to prise open a large oyster, that he can see contains an enormous black pearl. Within his grasp yet a million miles away. A sharper knife, a little more air, a smoother sea. Who knows? Or someone alone in the desert whose truck has just run out of fuel and has no water left. Perhaps returning from the wilderness with a magnificent diamond, found at the risk of going too far, staying too long?”

“To be honest Jim, when I think of the purity of what happened I cannot believe that fate would offer me the world in a moment, let me grasp it to my bosom, so that I possessed it totally, if only for an instant, and then viciously wrench it from my grasp, as though I had received it with indifference and ingratitude. Would she not give me time to consider; to consider the dark dangerous depths into which I was plunging, throwing all reason to the wind, with only the shell of primeval instinct? Would she not in her infinite wisdom and grace warn me of the risk to my soul in giving myself so selflessly, so completely and with such total commitment.”

“I feel that you may have been in love with love itself. But then again it was no fantasy. Instead you had the fantastic reality of receiving and returning love. She was everything you ever wanted and you loved everything about her. Yet you tell me she had no fault, no weakness, no blemish.”

“Well, I have always set high standards but this creature fulfilled and excelled them. She so satisfied my spirit and intellect that for her I ransomed my heart and soul. I lost and now, alas, she is no longer in my world; and yet I still see her. She lives in everything I see; she breathes in the flowers; she whispers in the wind.”

As I was talking I felt Jim’s finger tapping gently on my clenched fist. ‘Relax, my boy,’ he said. ‘Slow down and listen, for there is something I must tell you. When I was your age I felt very bitter and cynical that goodwill on earth flourished only at Christmas, and that mankind could revert to cruel indifference once the festive season passed. For many years this took away the spiritual joy of Christmas, until it was explained to me how miraculous it was that the whole world could find goodness in its heart and love together in harmony for even a few days a year. This is the real miracle. Remember, God would not make a perfect world where man would have no cause to turn to him. That would not make sense or have purpose. He would only make a world full of suffering and injustice, because mankind would then be forced to its knees, in need of Him.

You must realise that it does not matter when or where you met, how you felt, or what you did or did not do; try and realise the only thing that matters, and what you have to live for now, is the moment, for certainly there is nothing else.

As we stand frozen in time, nothing else exists and all we possess is the promise of a dream. The world should now be for you a better place, realising as you do that creatures such as her, do on occasion, pass gently through it. Each and every individual is susceptible to love. No creature is immune to kindness, and we all search for our true ideal, for we know it is not only a natural calling but also the noblest to which we may aspire. Most of us tire of the search and compromise, for we know that life itself, is indeed a compromise. I have always believed that if you become the object of some strong affection, rightly or wrongly, you must react with respect and humility. Charity and sacrifice are the highest virtues we can aspire to, and as hate cannot dwell with love, neither can true love exist without them. Perhaps the reason destiny struck was because she realised your worship of this angel was so potent that eventually it would have consumed you both. You placed her in Heaven beside God. You set her on a level no mortal had a right to aspire to, and had you totally possessed her, your fragile sanity would have crumpled to madness had she died or deserted as other mortals do, in little lives like ours. But God in his wisdom never gave you that choice. Instead He thrust faith and loneliness into your empty hands. Now you should feel grateful that you can still see and hear and breathe!’

After a fond goodbye, I left the old man sitting quietly as I had found him, alone at the corner table, with the leaves swirling round him, as I made my way home, along the path past the small graveyard. Nowadays it was only used for pauper’s burials, and as such was very peaceful. As I wandered along I now realised that a blend of peace can somehow be woven from the fibres of loss and bereavement, for we all have to compromise, if not with ourselves, with this imperfect world.

I reached the graveyard as the day surrendered to dusk, and paused for a moment on a bench to gather my thoughts. Now that I had spoken to my friend I felt the crushing weight of the world ease its burden on my shoulders. My empty mind filled with the sounds of life, and my dulled senses slowly came alive. I realised I was listening to the song of a blackbird as it rang out in the still quiet of the evening. It was then I smelt the fresh flowers on a nearby grave; I ambled over to admire them, and noticed in wonder the freshly carved stone that proclaimed a tribute to ‘Gentleman Jim - Knight of the Road’ It was dated last winter; the winter of the heavy snows.

Radical Rooney