Short Story: The Clouds above the Mist - Chapter 5

Life throws at us what we least expect. Sometimes, it’s the thing we fear most that shakes our very core, perhaps only because we feared it in the first place. Sometimes, it shows us its beauty in ways we could never even imagine. When we expect the worst, chances are, we get it in one way or another. Our worst fears – always surface in the most brutal of ways.

Nature is undeniably cruel; however, it always leaves bits and pieces of unexpected joy in the dreary wilderness that surrounds us in dark times. It’s our job to recognize the challenging good from the seduction of our demons. The beautiful creature that lures us into their caves to drown ourselves in guilty pleasures – an escape from reality, from strength. Or the beast that walks with us and our flaws, knowing we don’t have anything to offer but our selves, - a true companion that makes our reality, beautiful.

A basic glance at history and the lives of great leaders, philosophers, and conquerors have taught us to allow our minds to be ready for all probable outcomes for any given situation. To make many mistakes. To learn every lesson - and never repeat them again. Yet we often find ourselves in the same situation, one way or another, and question our own purpose.

I often wonder how animals survive in the vicious wild. How mammals endure the savagery of carnivorous predators lurking in the shadows. How insects live their lives, surrounded by ones that can crush them to mush. An individual ant probably has the least chances of survival. Does it know this? Does this mean it lives its life to the fullest; without any fear of loss, abandonment, dependency, unfulfilled ambition, or, roads it wanted to travel on, challenges it wanted to take and push its personal strengths to the limit?

My perpetual dilemma is questioning my purpose in this world. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Do I even belong? Am I just supposed to live a mediocre life working 9 to 5 in the pursuit of money? Am I this piece of flesh that wanders about recklessly until the day it decomposes? Am I supposed to find love, or is it supposed to find me? Or is it the pursuit of wealth?

Love has always escaped me, shattered my belief system, made me miserable and evaded me to the point where I don’t know who I am anymore. Made me look in the mirror and see nothing but a mere ghost, a wisp of cloud fading away. It has truly made me believe that I don’t have, or I lack the capacity to feel it, or provide it.

Money? It can be. Although I’m not the sort who goes for something that has no end or a resounding meaning to it. It doesn’t last. The less you have, the more you want of it. The more you have, the more you still want. It's an addiction. And that's the thing with addictions. They make you justify their grip on your self. Make you create reasons, cloaking the absolute weakness that they represent.

I crave for something that is brutally honest to its core and purpose. It’s not money, or women, both of which I believe are dishonest in their own selves, in being, purpose, and intention.

No, it's something else. It's in creating meaning and purpose for others. It's in making a difference. It's in bringing a smile on faces that have forgotten happiness. It's in bringing that gleam in their eyes. It's in giving people hope.

Unanswered questions race through my mind as i hand over textbooks and old clothes to children at the little charity I have set up at the local market close to where I live.

The queue is long. Restless children cling on to their mothers who gladly take anything I have to hand over to them. I try and smile at each pair of eyes that look at me as I hand over a bundle.

Is this selfish of me? Why am I doing this? Am I doing this to feel whatever humanity is left within me? Or am I doing this to help these unlucky people?

I packed my belongings last night. All of them, and stuffed them into my car. I don’t know why I did it, but I know I do want to help anyone who needs help and make their lives less miserable. Maybe that’s what I’m doing – making mine less miserable by giving everything away. A barter of sorts. Balancing the scales in my own way.

The books. Clothes. TV set. Furniture. Decoration pieces. Everything else. I try and worry about losing all of it, but I can’t. My mind is numb. I feel no regret.

My phone rings. I see her name and blink. I put the phone back in my pocket. I can’t talk to her, I think. Too busy right now. Her preposterous demands swimming around like poison in my already chaotic mind. Not the time.

I remember the night after the party, and the day after. I had blacked out because I had too much to drink. More than most, and had ended up in the gardens with her. The next day, as i gained consciousness in her guest room, she had proposed that I live with her…and her husband.

We have this amazing connection. I feel like you understand me more than anyone else, she had said.

The phone rings again. I pick it up. I hear heavy breathing.

“What?” I shout.

“He’s dead. Somebody killed him in his office. I need to see you, please” I feel the pain in her voice.

I look down at the phone, oblivious to the poor woman in front of me waiting for her bundle. Beer-man is dead. The man who saved my life, the man who I betrayed that night, is gone.