Like A Stone

From the outside the wood sided house had once been painted white despite it’s naked appearance. The pain of time and life made the house look as if tears, not weather, had chipped the paint away. The supports for the porch appeared unstable and left the roof at a slant. Only a few shingles remained and there were holes that shined light into the house. The shutters that had endured the life of this house hung awkwardly by a single corner or lay on the ground propped up against the house. The shutters had faded to a dark gray leaving the original color a mystery. This house was full of heartache and anyone who passed could feel the emotional warp that surrounded it.

The front door was wide open and the room on the other side appeared to be black with emptiness. The holes in the roof didn’t shine through this particular room as the exterior view anticipated. The freeway that adorned the front yard came as a later edition to the house with great disappointment to the owners. It seemed that along with the new lawn ornament came the degradation of the house. The need to destroy the hills that were once the view from the front porch brought on a subconscious destruction of the house itself. The owner, now an old man, sits in the corner of what used to be his bedroom in the shadows. He holds a book that tells of the secrets that have turned his home into what it is today. Light shines through the roof onto this book as he reads.

This book speaks of death and where he will cease to be. He gets lost in the pages day after day wanting to grasp onto where she is. The cobwebs that fill the house and the noise from the freeway are invisible to him as he longs to be with her. This book is the closest he has come to finding his way back to her and that is why he reads it every moment that he is awake and dreams of its contents when he sleeps. Over the years he has scribbled on the walls of this room. Over and over you can read:

In your house I long to be

room by room patiently

I'll wait for you here like a stone

I'll wait for you here alone

In this house that used to be his home he has become an old man obsessed with the book. He prays for his deathbed and when that day finally comes he will pray for anyone to take him to heaven. The book tells of heaven on earth and he knows that his life with her was exactly that and now he waits for his heaven in death. He remembers their evenings on the porch with the view of the bruised sky and the wine they drank with their dinner. He can still taste it on his lips and hear her laughter as if it were yesterday. She led him through every moment of his heaven on earth even when they were apart. It was the knowledge that he would see her face again that kept his soul alive. His lungs breathe and his heart pumps just as it did when she was at his side, but his soul drowns in this book without her. The hopes that the book fills his mind with are fading and he begins to believe that with that so will his breath. He feels as if he is drawing closer to her and his mortal demise. As the night creeps in, he runs his hands along the words on the wall:

In your house I long to be

room by room patiently

I'll wait for you there like a stone

I'll wait for you there alone

The tears pour hardest in the evening as if to mark another meaningless day because he did not spend it with her. The night has intruded and now he sits with his back to his corner and waits for sleep. In his dreams he will wander on until his death. Until the two souls that found each other in life can meet again.