Thursday, October 18, 2012

Good Mourning

"You can't believe in accidents," she said to him.

"Why not?  You believe in fate," he retorted, hoping that a statement as simple as this would be his pot call in his kettle black.  But then he realized that things that were too simple were too good to be true.  He knew she would push this further because she had always felt misunderstood, most of all, by him.

"That's different," she proclaimed without hesitation.

"No, it's not different.  It's naive," he said, knowing this particular jab would hit harder than any other.  He looked at the sagging skin under her eyes.  They weren't always like that.  Craters had formed in the   wake of tragedy, parking themselves in anticipation of a waterfall and aging her decades beyond her years.

"It's not naive.  It's just a hollowed out attempt at validation," she answered.

"What are you trying to validate?" he asked.  "What could you possibly need to do in this situation?"

"What does anyone try to validate in the wake of a death?" she answered him with a question.  He hated that.

"I wouldn't know," he said.

"They try to validate the death itself.  It's not rocket science.  It's not naive.  It's my last resort," she said, looking at the floor, no longer able to face someone who seemed as though they were looking right through her.

"Well, I believe in that,"he said.  His agreement surprised her.  People who don't believe in accidents usually don't believe in the idea of surprise either.

"You believe in what?" she asked.

"In doing what you have to.  Isn't that all any of us can do?"  he said.  He was profoundly sorry for these last minutes.  It had been worthless conversation, cruel even, and if anything, it only amounted to a case study in compassion, one that revealed he knew surprisingly little about the human plight.

No comments:

Post a Comment