Random 10

Outside, beyond the weakening barrier of stained steel and chipped glass, the wind blows, as it has every night for the last week; and, as I have every night for the last week, I wonder whether it is time to throw open the doors and windows and surrender to it, time to give myself over to the corrosive embrace of inevitability.

It has been nine days since I heard another human voice, and seven since I glimpsed any sign of life out there, those two distant figures struggling through a momentary break in the storm, quickly lost. However terrible the loneliness has been, that flash of hope was far worse.

Hope, I have slowly, reluctantly, come to understand, is the enemy. The silver-tongued torturer, whispering empty promises, so persistent and slippery and beguiling, so much crueller than fear and despair. While there's life, there's hope, that tenacious parasite of the soul; but there is no more life here. Just me. And when I am gone, then, finally, hope's dreadful reign will end.

It would be so easy to manage. The locks are puny things; the wind will open them by itself before long. So little now stands between oblivion and my hollow self.

And yet.

The cellar is not empty, not quite. Several bottles remain, some of the very finest of all, and the wind will not appreciate them. If I am the last of the flesh, I might as well enjoy what remain of its pleasures.

And so, as I have every night for the last week, I shall uncork a few, and savour every sip, and give myself over to that lesser oblivion until, as it must soon enough, the greater one takes me.
Posted by matt at October 11, 2005 10:33 PM