I've been in a bit of a sour mood lately and I don't know why. I wrote this to kind of cleanse my brainspace.
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They call it the golden hour. The hour that draws in the final breath of a day and exhales dusk. The hour when the sun paints the sky bruised and blood-smeared and slinks off to lick its wounds—to rejuvenate. The hour when shadows creep and crawl and devour. The hour before the hush and stillness of an ending descends and dreams are free to walk in the comfort of the night—dreams of new days, new beginnings, and open horizons.
Lost in the golden hour, he sat numbly watching the heavy drops of a December sun-shower slide down the window of the cafe. Fat, heavy opals refracting the last of the golden light like tears for Persephone. He couldn’t help but think of the unceasing march of mortality in times like this. The seemingly endless drag of life. The burden and expectation of continuance. He envied the rain for its impermanence—for its freedom to evaporate, to transform, to become something other. He inhaled—a long, slow breath that took in the hum and din and rattle of conversation and clatter—and exhaled wishing for the fog and calm of silence.
He felt heavy, as if his skin held the leaden weight of deadlines and priorities and reliance. His shoulders slumped beneath the encumbrance of obligation and the onus of being needed. He wanted to shrug. To let it all fall crashing to the floor. To delight in the wreckage of responsibility and regain the youthful freedom of summers spent idle and complacent in the notion that this is as hard as it will ever get. He wanted the freedom of not knowing. He wanted to surrender the hard earned lessons that only come of blood and tears and scars. To lose the wisdom that comes of mistakes and heartache. He wanted to see beauty and hope again instead of the pervasive madness and desolation of an epoch of hardship.
He was tired. The kind of tired that soaks deep into muscles and bones. The kind of tired that gleefully mocks every fiber of will mustered against it. The kind of tired that makes men want to sleep for millennia and dream of the gentle sway of the ocean and the wet kiss of sea mist. He gathered his strength. Willed his limbs into motion. He didn’t shrug. He hefted the burden of life, of responsibility, of adulthood and stood. Like the sun he had too much to do to give in to the bone-weariness. He walked into the rain. Looking up, he let the rain kiss his face; listened to the gentle, renewing whisper of it. He smiled.
Tomorrow is another day.
