Day Six:
They say this is my new reality…Aaron said last night that I must accept the truth as fact. That Benjamin is gone…that he would not return…that he had burned his bridges by selling my land…his land…to a Gentile. That I should mourn him as dead.
Dead? How can I mourn the living?
How can I mourn him as dead when I can still see him in my mind…when I can still hear him in my soul? I sit in his house…waiting. Surely, he will return and tell me that none of what they say is factual. Or I will awaken from this nightmare…that is it! I am dreaming a terrible dream. Was it something I had eaten…something I drank?
But no…this can’t be a dream. When I sleep, I dream of happy times…I dream of Benjamin…I dream we are together, walking and talking…laughing. Then I wake to find that I enter an unreal world. No, it is not a dream.
Some things are exactly as they have always been. The sky is blue. The stones of my home are various shades of brown. The grass is still green. The poppies in the field are still red. The same and yet not the same. There is a flatness…an emptiness…everything is dull. Nothing sounds the same…even the cheerful singing of our workers in the fields sounds like a dirge. Nothing tastes the same…everything is bland, and the spice has gone out of life. Nothing feels the same…nothing smells the same, except the robe still hanging in Benjamin’s house…I can still smell my son.
No comments:
Post a Comment