The Truth.
I thought I was doing the right thing when I threw Phillip off of his ninth floor balcony. Phillip had to die. I didn’t understand him. He scared me. I was convinced that there was no good outside of God, and I still believe it, but there was good in Phil and there is bad in me. What would Hyde have been if Jekyll were more flawed in his fundamental character? Who am I without my conflicting inhibitions? What is there of value in me? God’s image… what else is it that intrinsically imbues this world and it’s fallen, fallible, occupants with the ability to seek this evasive love that not one has the means to give…
I thought that if Phil was out of my life I would be free and able to pursue and discover real love without the hindrance of the knowledge that there was one so akin and yet so unlike me living in this world. Phil posed the threat of discrediting my need for God. I needed God. I still do. There is no justification for the taking of another human’s life, nothing that could be said that would make such an act excusable, nor can we end our own existence without eternal consequences, but I thought I could dispose of Phil… I thought that that part of me was expendable, even detrimental, and so I could dispose of it without repercussions. I tried to do it subtly. I tried to reason with him, I tried to frighten him away, I tried to overpower him, I tried to kill him. I was wrong.
It took some time to realize the effects of denying an identity that was so influential for so long. There are aspects of all of us we’d rather do without. Inaction can be just as deliberate and purposeful as action. Phil’s presence was my suffering… vice versa, no doubt. His passion and his imaginings, his emotions, his doubt, and his reason, all of who he was suffocated my understanding and perception and my belief. His unconscious unwillingness to proceed was my deliberate influence, and my insatiable desire for companionship and rest in the arms of another, is his legacy. Phil is alive in spite of my best efforts to quell his cumbersome existence. If I could be content to seek higher eternal principals alone I would be free. My humanity, my longing of longing, my desire of desire, my pursuit of pursuit, my love of love… all have their origins in the human emptiness we all seek to fill. I keep trying to convince myself that the next rejection will be the last. After all, the standard can’t be perpetually raised, but the measure isn’t linear and so there will always emerge someone whom I will believe is the potential one. I’ve come to learn through Phil’s death the value that is Phil’s life. It’s good to be in love in Love. I’ve become convinced just now, that in some non-heretic sense (if it could be articulated) that the human need for companionship and the spiritual need for God can be sated through one person… the person. If there is evidence of God in others, there is the fulfillment of that love available in and through tangible relationships. If there is no evidence of God in humanity, there is no God. My solitary conviction is that once I’m with the definitive one, all other potential ones will be revoked. I am of the persuasion that God is in love and life and everything and anything worth anything… God is.
I wonder if anyone can relate to this struggle… if anyone, having come this far, will be able to sift through these crystalline grains and find anything worth keeping in me.
There are so many decisions in life. So few are important. So few of those that are important are decided upon.
I’m so confused.
If it were you, if you knew that I loved you, what would you do? If any one of us knew the end before the beginning, would we continue? Love and pain are symbiotic, so are hope and despair, care and indifference, depth and superficiality, reality and appearances… the list goes on; all dichotomies require pairing antonyms. All we can do is risk and wait, living by habit and intuition according to any given situation at any given time in any given manner as our character deems the circumstances’ necessity. How depressingly inconclusive. At least there’s love to look forward to.
The divisive internal monologue so long rampant due to my unwillingness to interrupt his musings was finally taken off guard by an external distraction… a whisper in my ear:
“How could you…”
I exhaled, opened my eyes, and the response came, just as before, without any advance directive, of its own accord:
“How could anyone not love you?”
And there she stood before me, my Hope, Angelica. I can’t deny that I was hurt. The episode of living in constant intellectual stagnation, the promise it proposed of a bleak, lifeless, future, had almost succeeded in driving me from this temporal structured embodiment and my pain redoubled, started all over again, if it had even yet occurred … nor could I deny that I had hurt her. She must have her issues too; we had some things in common. Of course, to any degree that two lives are infused, their separation is bound to leave scars. It was apparent that my bounding confession had left her somewhere behind me in the dance we danced. We had connected, but now it would seem that Hope had cut in with me and Fear, or Phil, or some unnamed creature, had cut in with her. She stood in my doorway, shocked and appalled that I could say such a thing. My finger on her lips, my attempt to silence her protest, seemed to hurt her all the more. This time… being the first genuine time, my decision to kiss her was based solely on the belief that I would never have another chance to do so. She slapped me. She left. Three days later, failed attempt after failed attempt to know why, I stood outside on the balcony, dusk settling in for another night to be passed in despair. It would be too much. I looked over the inviting edge below and wondered what anyone would miss. No answer came soon enough so I straddled the barrier. I couldn’t believe how acutely I had perceived all of what was happening. Except I had no one to write my story to. Both Phil and Foster were over the edge. I was teetering, filling my lungs, leaning forward, and letting go. All of a sudden I was gripped. It wasn’t about a girl. It was about what she embodied. Not her body, but the potential of what it could contain. It’s about Love, Truth, Freedom, Joy, all the capital letter virtues. It’s about God, and God’s willingness, not just willingness but preference, to dwell within these temporal flawed (some more than others and all subjectively) broken vessels. I had opened up… something… something that wasn’t pretty, within the one I loved, and in myself. I had found room… room for more God… I was about to make a lot more too, for myself, because I was out of control now and pavement had a tendency to breach a number of physical enclosures. My momentum was being manipulated by gravity. I was falling. That’s when he caught me. He caught my hand and effortlessly lifted me up and set my feet back upon the concrete floor of my ninth story balcony. I had yet to see my savior, but I felt his hand on my shoulder, firm and engrossing. And I fell… this time to my knees, and I prayed to God; I don’t yet know what that means, but I did it. I communicated. No more games with time. I just closed my eyes and an all-consuming peace, which confirmed that this was neither the beginning nor the end, came to dwell inside me and reunited my broken heart with my hemorrhaging mind… I felt more myself than I had felt in a long time. I embraced my friend, glad to be together again… glad to be whole.
I heard the phone ring. I didn’t know what had transpired. I was sitting on a chair on the balcony. The sun was setting. The phone was ringing. The sirens passed along the nearby roadway. People were about below; invisible voices were sharing their stories. A plane flew somewhere above. The phone was ringing. It was beautiful… For the first time in the long moment-years of the past day-hours spent in introverted extroversion, spanning two lives, two loves, a death, and countless manipulated amalgamated musings of terror-bliss, I was honestly happy to be alive. The phone was ringing. How long had the phone been ringing? Without anxiety, without fear, and with a new placid confidence, I answered the call:
“Hello.”
Nothing. Then a dial tone. Oh well. I went to go and dig up a Bible but it rang again… the phone. This time I caught it pretty quickly.
“Hello?”
Still nothing… which was good. No dial tone, no click, no defaming remarks… just silence.
“Angelica?”
I figured that whoever it was remaining on the line was either sick or she… I took my chances and voiced, with as much tact as I could muster, my thoughts and feelings towards my Hope…
“I do love you. I was right. And I still love you, Angelica. And do you know what it is that I love the most about you? The possibility you represent. I love our shared potential… I love the prospect of us… I love the Hope… I love all of that right now… and I believe that I could grow to love you even more, with every passing day I spend with you, especially since I have come to love you increasingly every time I’ve been with you… and I sense a pattern developing. I want to know you Angelica… I want you to know me. I think you need to know that. At the same time, I don’t want to put anything on you that will cause you any grief. As it stands, I can’t help but choose you… and I’ll continue to do so even if I have to wait for you. Because I value my decision to love you. I’ll wait if there’s so much as a chance that you could love me too… but, if you know now that there is no place in your heart, nor will there ever be, where I may come to reside, just speak the word and I’ll bear my sorrow, and I’ll be ok… but whatever you think of me, know that I’ll always be available should you need a friend; the rest is a limited time offer.”
I couldn’t help but grimace at that last line… but I think my point was made.
It seemed like I was left holding the receiver for some time. But I was still. Not a single dialog was being recorded in my mind. I was only aware of a gentle breeze, the door to the balcony having been left ajar, but it didn’t smell like the city. It smelled like a rose. Then came the response.
“Phillip … We need to talk.”
A still, small voice… but her voice. Definitely, decidedly hers.
Still, God was God… is God, working things out for good. In full knowledge of my heart’s desires, on the brink of realizing one, I expressed my mustard seed of faith and lo and behold a mountain moved. I had no idea what would come of it, but I was believing that God was in her, that God was in me, and that the possibilities were endless.
“How about a chai?”
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