Tag: pain

short stories

~ Helping to Heal a Broken World ~

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~ Helping to Heal a Broken World ~

It was a world of hurting people. No doubt about it. Forget the fairytales and the happy-ever-after stuff they tell you when you’re a kid – this life broke so many people down and left them struggling to go on. Out there I’ve seen people without hope; without any desire to live in their eyes. I’ve seen people who have had all the light and love kicked out of them. Sometimes that person was the one in the mirror’s reflection, sometimes it was a friend, sometimes a stranger on the street. When you have been down at the very bottom, you feel as if you have this sixth sense that can detect whenever another is dwelling in that darkness. You don’t know what it is specifically, but it’s just there in a person’s aura. And as my friend sat there talking to me that evening, I could sense it again. He had been acting irregularly for a long time now. And avoiding friends, a sunken look in his eye, weight gain and drinking heavily. It was evident to me: that same state of being that had consumed me in the past. I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but I couldn’t find it within me to just ask straight to the point. Instead, I asked how he was doing – some casual conversation to try and make him open up. He answered in an ordinary manner. God, maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was fine after all? But I thought of the girl I had spoken to just a few weeks before her suicide the previous year. Others that had seemed fine and had suffered in silence before meeting their ends. Why was the world like this? Why was it so hard to open ourselves up? And why did I constantly feel it within me to try and help people, when often it was me who needed help myself? 

A girl I was speaking to told me I was a healer of some kind. Maybe she was right. It seemed that I was always looking to help a wounded soul. I stood ready with words of encouragement and enough enthusiasm to drag them through hell myself. It was an innate urge that I just couldn’t suppress. I was riddled with problems of my own, but the thought of helping a broken soul immediately spurred me into action. And there were so many out there in the world to help: the depressed, the lonely, the anxious, the broken, the lost. I guess in a way it did make sense why I felt the desire to alleviate other’s pain. When you know what it’s like to feel a certain way, the thought that there are others out there feeling that same way is troubling, so naturally you look to just make their existence a little easier. I think this is ultimately what led me to writing. There was a time when the words of others helped me to go on living when everything seemed hopeless, and I knew the life-affirming power a few sentences could yield. A part of me wanted to give people what those writers had given to me, and I guess that was one of the reasons that led me to sharing my heart with others. I wrote my words down and sent them out into the world to see if they had any value to people out there. To my surprise, it seemed that they did, and over time I received messages from others saying how it had given them strength and reminded them that they weren’t alone or crazy. Reading those messages was like spiritual heroin to me, and it made me feel like I was doing exactly what I was put on this earth to do. An existential desire had been fulfilled and it was the start of a continual need to keep offering pieces of my heart to the world.

Over time I came to meet similar people to me: people who had made it through some dark times, and now possessed a specific knowledge of the human soul, as well as an innate desire to help cure others. It soon became clear to me that certain people in this world exist as healers, and most of the time they don’t even know it. Not all healers are doctors or nurses. Sometimes it’s that friend with the reassuring comment; it’s that person making you feel safe enough to share your secrets. It’s the musician you listen to, the writer you read, the postman smiling to you as he delivers your mail. In a world of secretly hurting people, naturally it happens that a few of those people exist to lift people’s spirits and illuminate the darkness in which so many dwell. Without those types of people filtered, humanity would suffer from a great sickness which would spiral out of control. But in an ironic fashion, it just so happens that these healers happen to be in desperate need of healing themselves. A classic example was the comedy actor Robin Williams – the lovable star of family movies that had persevered all his life to put smiles on people’s faces. He eventually committed suicide after a life-long battle with depression to which most people were unaware. Such a fate was a shining example of how people in the darkness try to stop others from sharing that darkness with them. It reminded me of a joke the comic book Watchmen:

“Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. And says, “But doctor…I am Pagliacci…”

Indeed it’s a strange situation that the healers of this world are usually some of the most hurt individuals themselves. All those artists losing their minds while giving so many people the fuel they needed to go on. All those everyday people doing charity work and helping friends out even though they suffer from anxiety and depression. It seems that some people have a deep desire to sacrifice themselves for the aid of others. And I think I feel it inside too: this unwavering desire to lead others through the storm; to keep sharing my heart with the world no matter how much it takes out of me. Although this gives me a deep fulfilment, I guess I should try to pay more attention to myself sometimes. But ultimately this desire is paramount to my own health and happiness. Maybe it will cost me in the end, but in a world of hurting people, it seems throwing pieces of myself onto the fire to help illuminate the darkness makes more sense than anything else I ever knew. 

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~ Haunted ~

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~ Haunted ~

“After another night of reckless behaviour, I went and faced that morning mirror. I looked into my eyes and saw a harsh truth staring back at me. It was one I had always tried to avoid. Something dark and sinister lingered inside of me. It was always there stirring in my soul, haunting the hallways of my mind, whispering into my ear in moments of peace and happiness. I didn’t think I was to ever get rid of this parasite inside of me. It patiently waited for its moment to lure me back into the darkness; to pull me back to the periods of self-destruction and madness. And even when I thought I was finally rid of it – that my life had finally become one of sanity and order – there it would appear once more in my reflection. A twisted smile, a sinister stare, reminding me that it would always be there inside. The thought hit me that perhaps this sickness is not something I am meant to be cleansed of, but only learn to live with. It was a fundamental part of my being and I had to embrace the fact that maybe I wasn’t the pure-hearted guy I believed I was. And when I looked back at my life and my behaviour over the years, I began to understand why things had been how they had been. Some of us struggle to let the light touch our souls, because deep inside we know the darkness is where we truly belong.”

thoughts

~ Cave Dwelling ~

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~ Cave Dwelling ~

“Too often I stared into that mirror and felt pitiful and pathetic. That reflection showed me the things I didn’t want to face. I was a gollum, a wretch, a creature belonging to a cave. I had some dirt in my soul I couldn’t get out, but just try to scrub out in futility. I thought I deserved love, but I was sensitive in a world where the cold-hearted were the majority. I had to hide away; to hide myself far away from their piercing eyes. I retreated to the dark spaces to try and survive on the scraps of whatever strength I have left. Within those shadows, I resided myself to a life of loneliness and isolation. I came to realise that some of us are not destined to have inner peace and happiness; we are the broken ones, the lonely, the castouts, the rejects. We are ones that just do not belong to any heart or home. Our lives are ones of tragedy and heartache; of despair and desolation. And yet through all of this, light sometimes finds its way into my cave, offering glimpses of hope for me to crawl out too. The idea that one day I’ll stand back in the daylight; no longer locked away in the darkness, but standing strong and free and accepted for who I am. Finally escaping this internal prison. Finally being free of this living hell.”

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thoughts

~ Apparitions ~

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~ Apparitions ~

“Girl, I was always a bit of a solitary soul, but for a second there I saw this thing with you. To wake up on Sunday mornings with the light coming through the window. To caress the skin on your cheek as you smile with contentment. To know that I have another day by your side as my eyes open and for everything to be okay, if only for that day. I saw this thing with you. Some call it the normal life I guess. To stroll through parks hand in hand; to make love in an evening haze; to smell the scent on your neck and to not have to look anywhere else because all that I desire is there right in front of me. I saw this thing with you – this thing I now know is not gonna come. I have held you in my arms and because of that I have held happiness in my arms – that foreign thing, that strange concept. I would have given you everything of me. I would have thrown myself to your wolves, drowned myself in your sea, got lost in your forest. Yet we want different things; so it must be that we drift like ripples on the surface of water, and go separate ways. But you will always stay with me, like the other ghosts that linger inside me, those apparitions of happiness that haunt the hallways of my mind. Apparitions of something I can only see and not touch. Apparitions of another lover lost, another path not taken, another happiness not felt.”

not felt

thoughts

~ A Scarred Beauty ~

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~ A Scarred Beauty ~

“The journey of your life has been a testing one and as the years keep falling by, your heart is filled with a little more pain, that spirit doesn’t quite soar like it used to, the strength sometimes a little hard to find. You have fought hard all your life in a world that didn’t understand you; in a world that never had the guts to embrace your essence. Your path has led you through many places and now you look back you have left pieces of yourself on the way. On the shorelines where you dreamed of sailing home; on those mountain paths where you searched inside yourself; in those dark rooms where you tried to summon the strength to face another day. And you kept moving because it was the only thing you knew how to do; you kept moving because there was something that called you to a place you might have been able to call home. All these fights now weigh heavy on your soul, but may you keep your strength until the end of your road. From the greatest rains blossom the brightest flowers. And one day this world will stand in awe and marvel at the beauty of you.”

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thoughts

~ A Writer’s Path ~

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~ A Writer’s Path ~

“I took a few wrong turns, made some bad decisions, got lost along the way. But I look back now and realise it was the totality of those things which eventually led me home. I am living proof that fearlessly following your heart will eventually take you to where you need to be. My words come from that soul-searching wilderness; of walking alone through dangerous places with only my heart to guide me. It hasn’t been easy, and yes – there were some troubles along the way – but I now feel a completion in my soul that eluded me for so long. That completion has come after finally making it to the place I always knew I belonged. This is the linear way of life. We can only live it in one direction and our journeys usually only make sense when we look back upon them. Our lives are the culmination of many twists and turns, ones which leave marks upon us which we end up treasuring. It’s those scars and scratches which tell our story. It’s those cuts and bruises which make us the people we are. And it is our pain and our mistakes which eventually lead us to the lands which make our hearts sing and our pens dance.”

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thoughts

~ Hardened by Pain ~

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“I looked at the eyes of people around me and saw inner worlds of sunlight and peace. Meanwhile, inside my skull the ceilings dripped, the rats scurried. The world inside my mind was a scary place and I knew it was one that no other person should have had the misfortune of visiting. The darknesses I had descended to and the demons I had faced were not for the faint of heart. Still, sometimes when their non-understanding eyes stared at me once again, a part of me wanted to imprison them inside for just a day. I wanted to see the looks on their faces when they had seen the world behind my eyes; the looks on their faces when they came out screaming and crying. Never again would their ignorant sentences fall my way; never again would they think that their troubles were troubles. Of course, I wouldn’t have done this to my worst enemy. This prison inside was reserved for me and for me only. Only by some strange miracle had I managed to endure it all these years. By all rights, I should have been destroyed, but I had survived and now had this strange sense of invincibility flow through me. Words of hate did nothing; fear was laughable; storms were easily weathered. In the meanwhile, the others cracked and crumbled at the slightest exposure to such things. Their vulnerability made me reflect and come to appreciate my past sufferings. I had been hardened by pain and toughened by madness. I was able to walk through the fire without flinching. A strange courage filled my heart and I went through life no longer fearing the shadows or any monsters. Having lived in the darkness for so long, the demons were only companions to me.”

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~ A Piece of Me ~

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~ A Piece of Me ~

“They say broken hearts can’t be healed, and it’s true. They can be pieced back together, but always they will show their scars. Those scars tell my story and it is one of pain and madness. I have stood in rooms of darkness staring into nothingness. I have crawled through swamps and sewers of desperation. I have screamed out alone in the torture chambers of my mind. My soul has been ravaged and destroyed by a world in which I didn’t belong. Into those morning mirrors I stared, seeing the latest damage being seared into my soul. Often, I couldn’t help but look at that reflection and wonder what would be left of me? When the years had run their course. What would be left of me? When the storms had rained their rain. What would be left of me? When the demons had had their way with me one more time. I didn’t expect there to be much. The storms would continue and this heart of mine would continue to bleed out over the years. Still, sometimes I collected that blood and poured it into a poem or story. It gave me relief and some people out there even seemed to like it. This was our nature. We were all parasites of each other’s pain. The blood and guts of others give us the fuel we need to continue on. It is our nature to feast off the scraps of another’s soul. I hope that this piece of mine gives something to you.”

man alone

short stories

~ Beaten ~

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beaten

~ Beaten ~

Eyes full of sickness and sadness, I stared at the dancefloor with a feeling of resentment. There they all were: those happy people with their happy faces. They moved effortlessly across the floor like they moved effortlessly through life. No doubt they all lived sane and orderly lives of structure and stability. They didn’t know my pain, my madness. They didn’t know what it was like to linger always on the sidelines and stare in from the outside. I stood there doing exactly that, leaning on the bar while watching them as they moved and grooved. I downed a double whiskey coke while continuing my ethnographic observation. I drank another one then realised my friend had left with a girl. I looked around for any possible chance with a female before conceding defeat and heading for the door.

Exiting the bar and stumbling down the street, my eyes beheld a jungle of kebab shops and neon lights leading me through the city centre. I watched as drunken revellers shouted, scoffed food and clambered into taxis. The human race was a wild species that had been tamed by its own creation of civilisation, but there was still a certain level of anarchy we allowed to unfold. This was best witnessed at 4am on highstreets full of broken bottles and broken minds; on highstreets where couples stood screaming at each other; on highstreets bearing piles of puke that were symbolic of the inner sickness of society. The sight of it all made me sad and it was at this point I remembered that it was my first time in Sheffield and I was supposed to be staying with my mate who had disappeared with a girl. I had no battery on my phone to contact him and suddenly found myself in the situation of having nowhere to sleep. Not an ideal situation admittedly, but by that point I was too drunk to care. Lost in the blur, I carried on staggering down the sidewalk until three men started speaking to me. I must have done or said something slightly disagreeable because the next thing I know I was getting the shit kicked out of me on the floor. Kicks and punches rained down upon me. My body grinded against the pavement. Venomous words of hate filled my ears. The beating continued for a good thirty seconds until the blurry figures ran off and disappeared out of sight. I picked myself up and assessed the damage. Blood dripped from above my left eye as my ribs ached and hip throbbed with a friction burn from the concrete. I knew immediately that my body was going to have more scars – more symbols of the destruction of my life etched permanently into my skin and flesh. 

Still not knowing what to do or where to go, I wandered around the early morning streets of Sheffield city centre while looking like someone from a horror movie. I didn’t have anywhere really to go and just kept stumbling around in a drunken daze. Eventually a police woman picked me up after some bystander spotted me in my gory state. I told her what had happened as she drove me around town in her car. I guess I was expecting to get taken to a hospital, or perhaps to the police station to file a report, but in the end she just cleared up my wound and dropped me outside a closed train station. I got out of the car and stood there alone in the cold winter night wearing just a t-shirt. Cuts to the public services in Britain had resulted in this – underfunded and overstretched, they looked for any way to avoid you utilising them. Consequently I stood there shivering and staring into the empty station, waiting for the damn thing to open. My ticket wasn’t until noon, but I was just going to board any train I could. If only there was a train off this planet, I pondered. 

Finally the station opened and I went inside and sat down watching the smartly-dressed business people get ready for another day at work. I watched the mothers quickly glance at me and look away in horror. I watched the little kids snicker and gossip about the wounds on my face. Those looks followed me onto the train where I tried to sleep but was woken up by a ticket inspector who told me my ticket was invalid for the current service I was on. I got out my card and paid for a new one as the conductor kept his distance. Thirty minutes later, I arrived in Derby where I was meant to switch trains to Nottingham. Looking at the board, I could see it would be another fifty minute wait in the cold until I could catch the connecting train. Suddenly it was all too much and I left the station and paid for a £40 taxi back home.

I think it was about 3pm in the afternoon when I awoke finally sober. Being too tired to clean myself first, I had collapsed onto the bed and left bloodstains all over the sheets. I grabbed them and threw them in the laundry. I then went into the bathroom and stared at my beaten face in the mirror. Back in a normal state of mind, I could finally see the severity of the beating I took. There were deep cuts, bruising and bumps around the left eye, as well as a few scratches on the right. It was a sorry sight to behold and I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be going on a date with a girl later that evening. Maybe it could be rearranged, I thought. I then spoke to a friend on the phone who convinced me to head to the hospital to check for a concussion. I walked there for an hour as people continued to look at me like some sort of circus freak. I reached the hospital and stood looking up at that sad building with its rows and rows of windows. Windows in which the dying lay dying – windows in which those old hearts beat their last beats, those lungs gasped their last breaths and those eyes soaked in their last bit of light. I guess that’s where we all end up, maybe with a few relatives and flowers beside us if we are lucky. I headed in where the doctor inspected me and told me that I didn’t have a concussion but that I needed to be careful. I asked if there was anything I could do to stop the scarring around my eye. No solid advice was given. 

All things considered, I sat back and knew it had truly been a night of disaster. Perhaps the most disastrous of any night out I had, and there had been a few dramas along the way. I thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, but apparently the gods had a few more tricks up their sleeves. When I returned home I checked my jean pockets and realised I had lost my passport at some point during the night. I also remembered that I was supposed to be starting a new job in a few days, and that I would have to turn up on my first day with my face looking like I had just ten rounds with Mike Tyson. That’s not to mention what the girl would think of me when I showed up to the date. It was a sorry state of affairs and all of a sudden a strange feeling fell over me. I touched the wounds on my face and felt like crying. It was the realisation of the horror and futility of it all. The world was relentless pain and agony, and no matter how good things got, you were always just a short way away from being stamped down by the boots and fists of life. I was only one week into the new year and already it was looking to be another one of misery and destruction. It was a depressing thought and I went into the bathroom to once again stare at my gory reflection in the mirror. I was beaten – scratched and scarred and stained with a dirt of which I’d never be clean. It was a sight I had beheld many times in my life – physical and mental wounds that gathered over the years – wounds that told the story of what each human faced on their path through life.

I continued wallowing in my self-pity until something strange happened. Out of nowhere, I burst out laughing. I looked in the mirror and laughed and laughed until my stomach hurt. I walked back into my bedroom and laughed some more. I even did a little dance in front of my wardrobe mirror while marvelling at the absurdity of my appearance. The misery subsided and I felt a strange determination within me. It was something that always appeared in moments where I was truly in the swamp of despair. The more this world tried to stamp me down, the more I just wanted to rise up against it and bare the blows. Maybe I was losing my mind completely, but I was going to make sure that life would be lived before death had its dirty way with me. With that thought in mind, I cleaned my cuts up some more, showered, drank a beer and got dressed for my date. 

It was going to be another magical evening.

short stories

~ A World Not Made For Lovers ~

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~ A World Not Made For Lovers ~

Her hazel eyes dimmed with a sadness. There was a heaviness in them which pulled them down to the ground. There was the light of love still in there somewhere, but it had been suppressed down to the tiniest flicker in the vast darkness that enveloped every horizon of her inner universe. Like most lovers in this tortured world, she sat alone in silence and stared emptily into space, confused at the situation of existence before her. She knew deep down a sensitive soul like hers didn’t belong in this society of cruelty and trickery. She wanted affection but got rejection; she wanted passion but got apathy; she wanted to fly but was tethered down by the concrete gravity of reality. In her heart she felt betrayed that the gods had left her stranded in this environment. Her cards had been dealt and now, like a little bird in a cage, she flapped around hopelessly within her confines, aching inside to return to the place where her spirit belonged soaring free.

      We had met recently out on the road and now by circumstance I found myself with her in the Netherlands. A Spanish girl in Amsterdam, Sara, away from home, trying to get by and make her way out in foreign lands, but stuck in a struggle I knew all too well. “The people are cold here” she told me. “They are like robots. The men just fuck you and then stop speaking to you. I can’t make any friends. People put up barriers if they don’t know you already. Honestly, I have no idea what I am doing here.” She carried on spilling her pain and frustration, talking about her ex and her past failures in relationships. “I am broken but everyone is broken after a while, you just have to keep looking and find the person who is less broken than you are.” 

     Her words struck a chord with me and naturally it felt good to be around a fellow scratched and scarred soul. We continued sharing our thoughts about life as we roamed around Amsterdam, spending our time drinking in the cafes and bars, strolling down the canals and checking out the sights of the capital. At one point we walked around a museum and talked about life and travel and relationships. We looked at Van Gogh’s paintings – another lover driven to madness and isolation by the weight of the world. In his self-portraits you could sense his simultaneous love and despair for the human condition. Speaking to Sara while viewing the paintings, I stared into her eyes and saw that same tortured look. I saw that little bird inside longing to be free, to be loved and to belong to someone or something. I had seen it before in the most beautiful of souls I had come across out there on the road. It seemed that if you walked this world with an open heart, you were sure to suffer more than the average person. If you truly loved without a filter than people didn’t know what to do; often the other sex saw it as a weakness and inevitably you were left heart-broken and dejected. I thought of Van Gogh cutting off his ear giving it to a woman to show his love. Admittedly cutting off body parts was perhaps a little extreme but, like Van and Sara, whenever I fell for someone, I went in with all my heart and was inevitably left shunned. Ironically I was here with her but had recently fallen for another girl who had rejected me, and now I had only added to her misery by misleading her. I was also part of the problem. But I had my own problems too. We were both drowning in our own individual way.

     When I really thought about it, it seemed that it wasn’t just relationships where the ones who loved without a filter suffered. It was life and society in general. The more open-hearted you were, the more you were beaten and broken down by the nature of humanity. I couldn’t make sense of it. I looked out at the world around me and saw a brutal and backwards system. It was a place where the cruel and cold-hearted rose to the top. A place where sociopaths and narcissists flourished while the most caring and thoughtful were trampled underfoot. A strange game was being played and the people who were usually the winners were the ones with the fake smiles, the smooth lies and a cold, calculating nature. To be sensitive and caring was considered a weakness in this society. It wasn’t good for the economy. It wasn’t good for survival. It wasn’t good for business or strategy. The best rewards were for the merciless and uncompromising. Dog eat dog, as they said. Every man and woman and child for themselves.

    Meanwhile, those who loved with reckless abandon didn’t make it. They lingered in the solitary shadows and sidelines. The lovers. The dreamers. The idealists. The poets. The INFPs. Often this world didn’t know what to do with them. So many of them were cast out, shunned, neglected, or misunderstood. In the worst cases they were gunned down by the fear and hatred of humanity. John Lennon. Martin Luther King. Gandhi. Malcolm X. JFK. Abraham Lincoln. Aside from them you also had the sensitive and artistic souls driven to suicide or early death by the crushing weight of it all. Kurt Cobain. Hemingway. Winehouse. Kerouac. Ledger. Sylvia Path. Robin Williams. For such people to survive in this world, they needed to put up walls and toughen themselves up. But so many of them were clearly unable to do that, and consequently they were left burdened by feeling too much in an uncaring and hostile world, slowly being driven to death and destruction and alcohol and madness.

     Yeah, no matter how you looked at it, it was a world not made for lovers and I guess, like Sara, I knew opening my heart up to it would also leave me tortured, sitting alone and staring into space, confused at the situation of existence before me. But I didn’t really know what else to do. I was a man ruled mercilessly by his own heart. With child-like curiosity I explored the world around me. I tenaciously followed my passions. I lived fiercely according to my ideals. I loved without a filter. I expressed myself from my heart and soul. I thought these things would be good qualities in life but so far it had only made my life extremely difficult. People abused my kind nature. Speaking from my heart often caused people to distance themselves from me. My authenticity didn’t give me acceptance. My ideals and passions were not compatible with society. I guess I had the ability to stop being this way, but a part of me refused to let the essence of myself be diluted down by the hostile environment I had found myself in. 

     “You need to stop being so sensitive and ruled by your emotions.” 

     “Man up.”

     “Learn to play the game like everyone else.”

     I’d heard it all before just like the others had, but by now I knew I wasn’t going to change. Speaking to Sara as we strolled around Amsterdam, I was reminded how much better the world was when you had those sort of people around you. Just a day or two in her company and suddenly my faith in humanity returned. Suddenly the streets of society didn’t all seem to be doom and gloom with people like her somewhere out there. As long as you just came across a few pure-hearted people every year, it restored something in you; it relinquished the dread inside of you of your own species. Normally those lovers were the most troubled people, but in my eyes they were the most courageous, the most beautiful, the most precious. They were the ones who reminded you that there was still some hope left. The ones who reminded you that humanity wasn’t totally doomed. The ones who reminded you that there was still a chance to find some gentleness in the craziness of this world. 

    To the lovers out there fighting on in this world where so many cold-hearted creatures and demons run amok, don’t let yourself be swallowed up by the storm. Keep the flowers growing in your heart; keep the doves flying in your mind; keep the sun shining in your soul. Sara, little bird, if you are reading this, I hope you find your happiness and learn to smile a little more. Don’t let the weight of this concrete world grind you down. Don’t let yourself be broken down by those hollow-hearted and empty-eyed creatures. Keep your heart kind; keep your soul pure; keep loving fearlessly without a filter. When all is said and done, it’s the people like you that keep the soul of humanity alive.