Lost in the cold unrelenting darkness
Alone in my misery without her tenderness
There is no trace of the man she once loved, just me
Nothing more than a memory……..
The last thing he remembered was hearing a voice that seemed a million miles away…
“I don’t know how it’s even possible, but this guy’s still alive… looks like he might have tried to finish himself off but passed out from the loss of blood. There was another voice, coming from even farther away.. “Yea, well there’s no doubt about it… this one’s dead.”
And then, the next thing he knew he was lying in a lonely hospital bed staring groggily up at some guy with glasses. “So, I suppose you want to know how I got here… ”
They’d sat together this way for three days and the man in the bed never said a word. Wisely, the response was cautious, not demanding anything, “Only if you’re ready to tell me.”
His eyes focused enough to see the man’s name badge had the word Psychiatrist on it. “Oh great, another shrink… that’s all I need.”
“That’s exactly what you need.”
“Yea.. well….maybe you’re right… except the only one I ever let get inside my head is long gone…forever out of my reach. I guess she always was. I just didn’t let myself believe it.”
The guy just looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Funny… I thought that’s why he was sitting next to my bed in the first place. Not that I cared. It’s a tale as old as time, or so they say. I’m sure you know the one… Beauty and the Beast, or something like it. A man whose core of goodness lays beneath layers of ugly darkness. Headed down the wrong path, he meets a kind and beautiful woman and she redeems him. She looks inside and finds that core of goodness, she helps him smooth the rough edges, she soothes his tortured soul. She teaches him how to love and he learns well. They have children and they live a good life together. ‘Happily ever after.’ is the phrase they like to use. That was what I believed, or maybe it was what I wanted to believe. No, it was what I needed to believe. Purely a matter of survival.
“I had that dream once. I destroyed it. To be brutally honest, I destroy everything I touch. Like that one story…. Hell I can’t remember. Guess the alcohol killed too many of the remaining brain cells after she left me. Basically, I break people’s hearts. I fool them into believing I’m a good man, even convinced myself for awhile there. They love me and then I ruin their lives. It’s my legacy…
Credit it to a sick excuse for a human being by the name of Stefano Dimera. He taught me everything he knew and I killed him. Schooled me in the dark side… he was a very good teacher, but not as good as she was. Unfortunately, his hold over me was stronger than we both knew, stronger than we were willing to admit anyway.
“You see… before I met her, I was a nothing man. I was alone, no memories, not even a name, no inner compass to guide me…. Nothing. I was a lost soul, drifting aimlessly in a world that I didn’t recognize. And then I saw her…. looked into her golden glimmering eyes….. I could write volumes on her eyes alone. Warm hazel eyes, alive, vital, sexy, sparkling, loving eyes. I could get lost in her eyes… And forgiving… they’re so forgiving… Anyway, that’s how it all started, with one caring glance from those amazing eyes. Her smile alone could light up a black hole. That’s what she did for me. She reached into the depths of my darkest place and she brought me into the light. I was scared, never admitted it, but I was shaking like a leaf on a tree, and the second she walked into the room I could feel myself relaxing, breathing easier. No, just breathing period. She was glowing, like some kind of angel of mercy, overflowing with love and compassion I knew I didn’t deserve. I wanted to…. God, you’ll never know how much I wanted to believe that I could be worthy… she made me believe it… And when she touched me…. There are no words. Alive… the walking dead man lived. She made me care about life, she made me want something, she gave me a reason to breathe, and to strive for my identity. I was nothing and she was everything. Scared the hell out of me. Never told her that, but she knew. She always knew. I ran… but I always came back. Had no choice. She does that… she gets inside you and she lives there… in your heart. She changes you. I thought it was enough…When I started to realize what kind of world I came from, I tried to push her away. She wouldn’t go. Foolishly, she loved me…you see, she bought into the lie too… thought she could save me when nobody else could. I guess even people like her have a weakness, a fatal flaw. I was hers, Dammit! I should have kept running, then she would have been safe and happy. ”
“It sounds like she loved you very deeply and you loved her too. What happened?”
“Doctor, I don’t think you have the time… and if I tell you… you’ll probably just say it’s part of the illness. Delusions… of persecution…I think that’s what they call it…”
“I’d still like to hear it, if you want to tell me.”
“I don’t know…. it sounds pretty crazy to me… and I lived it.”
“I know… life is just that way sometimes.”
“We were happy, well, sort of…Actually, a lot of nasty stuff happened… but there was always that incredible spark of magic between us… this amazing incomprehensible bond that was a cross between romantic love and a platonic friendship… After years of being apart we were finally together… even got married….and I thought it could work. I felt safe and I relaxed. My other big mistake… he taught me never to relax… “Stay on your guard, never allow yourself to feel safe, John…he always said…”
See, I thought that if I got my past back… I would feel like a whole person, that I could fill the empty space that was still there inside of me…eating away at my soul. I was such a FOOL… and that was my flaw… I didn’t see it then… but the empty space *was* me. The nothing man… that’s who I really am.. nothing more than a mad scientist’s creation. All that other… John Black, Salem’s hero… that was a grand illusion…
“Like I said, we were okay for awhile… I even tried to stop the process when the memories started to return…didn’t much like what I saw in that long coveted past of mine. I put the brakes on and willed them to stop pushing their way to the surface. But by that time it was much too late. Stupid!!”
I should have known from the very beginning that it wouldn’t last, should have saved her the pain, should have let the KGB, Vic, Orpheus, Stefano, or any one of a dozen others off me.
“If only I had known what I would do to her… I would have laid down to die out there in the wilderness. I would have done anything, but I didn’t… I didn’t, because I believed she could save me, and I thought I was strong enough… I thought I could learn to love her the way she deserved to be loved… I thought I could protect her from pain, but I couldn’t protect her from MYSELF… I was blinded and by the time I opened my eyes, the damage was done.”
“But if you had it to do all over again, would you have chosen not to have met her?”
“Depends on whose viewpoint. For her…to save her the pain…yes, I would erase our meeting. I would go back and be his mercenary, I would kill, I would die, I’d go down on my knees and beg God or Satan… if they’d listen… to undo the harm I’ve done to her… Anything… I’d do anything for the chance to turn back time and save her from my madness..”
“But for you? Do you regret the love you shared, the time you had with her? As much as you’ve suffered for having lost her… would you erase it, for you?”
“No… I would sell my soul for one second of being with her. Loving her was the only good thing that ever happened to me in my whole sorry existence.”
Memories of intimate magic drifted by.. special times… the first time…. the first honeymoon…
“And making love with her… God, it was ecstasy… it was joy and peace… it was fire and ice all wrapped up in one incredible package. I was consumed by desire… not just for me… but to please her… to give her every ounce of myself….and my body. When she touched me, she touched my soul… she made me clean… for just a little while… she stripped away the ugliness and she fixed what was broken inside of me. She owned me… and I *wanted* to be owned…
“And the children….”
What of the children… beautiful babies… so much like her… “I wanted to love them as my own… she gave me a life, a family, a home… she gave me everything I ever could have dreamed.. and I destroyed it. My demons would not be silenced…would not stay in that dark corner of my mind…because I gave them an opening… No, they came back to haunt me… like he taunted me all those years… the bastard even warned me… but the demons he put there, they waited…. So patiently… they waited until life was good, until I thought I had overcome his evil…. And then they made me betray her…. and I lost her forever.”
His mind took him back to that fateful night… the night she left him… the night he took the Bastard out and sent him straight to hell. “One more bullet… that’s all it would have taken to end this misery.” How easy it should have been to make sure they both died that night, laying in a shared pool of blood. It was a fitting ending for the battle between two mortal enemies, the evil Creator and his progeny.
“But, no… I even screwed that up! I should have known that nothing would be that easy for me. Never has been.”
The Old Man made sure of that, and so here I am in a nut house talking to myself. I’m like an old building that’s been slated for the wrecking ball… Still there, still existing, but cold, dark, and lifeless. There’s nothing there but just an empty shell. She’s still everything good there ever was, but I’m just a nothing man…Nothing more than a memory…..
The Jarlena Journal 