The Dying Man

Even the candles were too bright for what had to come.
When mortals count their breaths
There is only one riddle
Every man and woman
every breathing
earth-bound soul
needs to solve.

The dying should not see the way we do.
If they are blinded by what we feel
loss and promise,
they cannot go home.
And we cannot be left alone.

Mortals should not burn in kin-born light.
No sweat or tears can take their fear.
They turn to stone
for the palace of the lost.

My breath silenced the fire.
Dimmer. Quiet.
More room to think.
Do we breathe the emptiness between us?
Or does it breathe us?

No mercy for the dying.
The moon casts its pale light into this forsaken place.

Ancient one, pale god.
You know where I am.
You have always known.

Now, through you, I see:
The wooden floor. Worn clothes.
In the mirror lies a dying man.
Father.

Once, he was full of life.
Strong enough to work in the fields.
Alone, without us.
But bitter as poison.

Now, he lay like a wrecked ship on the beach.
A warrior once.
Proud.
But never looked back.
Now, each breath is a fight to the death.

I stared down at him.
His eyes were open.
Too weak to blink.
That made me strong.

My eyes refused to look away.
They wanted to see this wasted body.
And if he is one of us–
see him die.
They starved for years.
Waited.
And now they drink–
forbidden water.
Not to satisfy their hunger
But to understand
what happened to me.

The moon hid beyond clouds.
Returned.
Vanished.

Vanish. Leave me.
Go where the countless forgotten sleep.
He stayed to cut.
Again that night.
Like before.

They say Moonlight guides the weak.
I hid. It doesn't touch me.
Does it comfort the dying?
And those who remain?

One look at this body, once a father–
what can I call the Moon?
A lie.

It gave nothing.
And returned nothing.
I, a beggar in an empty world.

His body, useless now.
His eyes still stared–
pierced me like Longinus’ spear.

No warmth.
His look–
a thousand hornets
eating from the open wound
I've carried for years.
No mother to close.
No strength to heal.

The empty chair
made of iron needles.
I dared not sit.
Not until he spoke–
until he gave the word.

His voice was quiet now.
It made me breathe–
for the first time in years.
I sat down next to him.
I didn't dare
look at him any longer.
But I felt the hornets
nesting under my skin.

He smelled of old sweat.
Unwashed.
Tyrant once.
Pariah now.

The reek of whisky and tobacco
thickened the air like oil.
Hard to breathe.
Like old, forgotten bile.
The scent of a dying man.
His scent.

They forbade the bottle.
Took the smoke.
But the scent stayed.
It grew with him,
breathed through grey skin.
Even Styx waters–
with all its might–
could not clean this rot.

I told him that my only wish
was not to be born as his son.
And his eyes spoke to me
in a language as old as man
that needed no words
He wished that, too.

Every minute with me,
every thought he had:
An unearned coin.
An untouched glass.

Once I wept in the house he made
Until the walls gave up
And in its ruins, silence grew.
No tears, no fright, no hate.

And this night, we came together.
Everyone by himself.
Him,
Me.
The comforting light of the moon.

Knock, knock.
A bat? No, it's not.
Elders read the old runes
and name unspoken things–
I remember them all.
But my childhood seemed so far away.
When I saw my breath
And flowers of ice grew fast
I felt it quickly and found its name.

The dying man knew.
As a brother knows his brother.

Death.
It was Death.

He looked at it.
No blink.
Calm breath.
A stone unmoved,
the axis of the stars.
The shadow withdrew–
became one with the night.

The old man's eyes mirrored the abyss.
No fear. No pain. Not even regret.
Even Death dares not touch the Untouchable.
My father.

The one who can turn air into oil.
Whose eyes shame the reaper.
He alone decides when to go.
Only he will choose when to speak his final poem.
Not yet dead, but not alive,
he alone speaks truth.

Then I saw it shimmer
deep in the ocean of his darkness.
I looked again.
Deeper.
Longer.
I heard his broken breath.
Inhaled the scent of his bile.
Then–nothing.
His eyes broke.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Silence.
He was dead.
Not long enough.

His lungs pumped back the oil.
The heart turned black blood to flowing tar.
His eyes burned me.
Just one word:
Abomination.

He was back.
Swallowed me.
I am you.
You are me.
I see you now.

What his hands began, I must end.
He is the burden of this world.
So I must do what even Death can't.
I, the abomination of this earth–
I have found my name.
The fearful eye sheds a tear.
It falls slowly.
And breaks on the pillow.
I am his sickness.
His legacy.

I took the graveyard of dead tears
and pressed it to his mouth.
I am Abyss now.
Darkness–I awoke.

Nothing could prevent this death.
A whole life, he tried.

Don't bid farewell.
I hunt you down.
For aeons to come.
I follow you past the end.

†