Fool

        I looked down upon my soon-to-be-bride praying in the abandoned chapel that she had made her life in.  Nothing could destroy this moment.  The beauty of her dark red hair falling to the back of her kneeling legs sang along with the flowers that grew for her and her alone in this desolate wasteland called a city to perfectly personify the radiant woman I fell in love with. 

        I didn’t look to see whom it was walking up the aisle to my left.  I knew who it would be.  The fool, the idiot one whom would let this girl go alone without him.  This is the ignorant foe that I could never seem to vanquish.  Not until it was too late.  The man kept walking past me as if I were not there.  The infidel moved, with a bottled exuberance that disgusts me now more than ever, straight up past the flowers and knelt beside her, and he treated her as if he deserved this wondrous gift that the gods bestowed upon his pestilence.  But, the thing that enrages me most, is that she responded trustingly and thus foolishly with the same love for this man that would bring nothing but ruin for her fragile life’s beauty.  Having approached her, there was a break in their flirtation, and with this pause my nemesis wrapped his arm carefully about her, slipped a tiny silver ring void of any gem onto my love’s finger, and whispered four small yet powerful words to her, “Will you marry me?”

        My recently cataleptic mind arrives back in this world to look up to see another rotting plate of garbage displayed in front of me.  As the nurse gently and kindly attempts to persuade the mess to my face, my arm brushes her away calmly with a gentle swing, and smoothly brings my hand to rest on my newly shaven head. 

         I don’t like this place.  Why did I think I should come here?  I checked in about three weeks ago and already I want to leave.  Maybe it was my family that convinced me to come here.  Yeah, it was Mom who helped me with the decision after my first attempt… I’m not going to talk about that.

        Ah, now it comes… time for bed… I slowly lower and rest my head.  The dreams, again, flood my mind.  The attack I cannot deflect.  I look again at my love, glorious beauty and all.  A knife in the back and I hear her fall.  A knife in the back and the infidel cries.  A knife in the back and the foolish one cries.  Every night the same dreams come.  I’ve talked to my family, my friends, and even expensive and well-corked ears with apparently important degrees.  None of which have helped, and I doubt ever will.  I’m doomed, doomed to live my life in memories, like an unstoppable malignant nickelodeon.  I can still se the crystal shards gleaming in the temple from the setting sun’s blinding rays.

        Breakfast is soon to come, and a new nurse is to be assigned to my care today.  Carol told me a week ago that this would happen.  That she would finally be leaving to become another expensive ear in this world.  Yes, this morning a new person gets to take me out on three dates a day.  Her name is Tifa.  Apparently she isn’t very prompt, or she’d be her by now.

        I hear gentle turn of the door handle, just like everything else around here… gentle, and in walks my new nurse.  She is nothing that I would have ever expected.  A pair of long slender legs underneath a blue skirt that’s walking into my room.  I notice her tan skin, indicating she has some kind of life outside of the city.  She is actually beautiful!  I watch as her pink lips move silently while she reads my chart.  I was beginning to think that nothing in this place of white curtains and rotting food could ever be even somewhat pleasant.  She almost reminds me of her…

        I looked at my love staring into the fountain filled with tiny swimming fish, full of life like her.  I saw her eyes touched with a hint of blue smile in them.  We were to be married in two weeks, and I was scared and foolish.  I didn’t think that we could make it.  I wanted so much to love her and know that I’d be content.  Everything about her… was so full of life.  Her lovely face was reflecting in the fountain pool, while bits of algae and green and yellow fish swam in her image.  She only nibbled at a plate of steamed vegetables.  I looked up and met her real eyes, happily focused on me.  But, I was indeed scared and foolish.  So scared and foolish that I thought it was actually intelligent to not give myself the chance to foolish.  I thought that I would have cheated on her like my father did to my mother.  I confessed these feelings and ended the relationship, and ended the smile and the never-ending happiness shining from this girls face.  Tears fell onto her plate, salting her delicate face.  A horrible guilt spread over me and a fear, and a dumb-numbness.  I let her run in that hesitant moment…  Tears welled in my eyes and three fell, four, maybe more…  It’s the right thing… no.  No!  I stumbled up from chair and ran… blurred faces watched me, and I ran.

        I feel the gentle cold breeze of the air conditioning in the cafeteria.  Tifa grimaces as we walk down the lunch line.  Apparently she doesn’t think too highly of the food here either.  Every other nurse tried talking the food up, saying things like, “It’s good for you” or the one I especially loathe, “It’ll put meat on your bones.”  Anyway, while I think disgusted thoughts about old ladies in hairnets we find our way to an empty table.  I sit, fearing conversation because she is young, tolerable, and I already respect her a little.  And, for some reason, I don’t feel like she was just being with a crazy person right now.  For some reason, I feel that nothing I say will make her feel any bit uncomfortable.  Thinking about what to say, something just pops out that I don’t intend.

        “I don’t believe I’m truly crazy Tifa.”  I don’t quite know why I said this.  My face turns a little red.  I hope she’ll ignore it, or, better yet, that she didn’t hear it.  But, then she abandons poking at her food and looks up into my eyes, and… I think of my love…  A pang of hurt hits me for a second, and I am concentrating again as she talks.

        “I don’t believe so either, Mr. Strife.  An event that one is subjected to does not mean that the person is insane.  In your case the trauma flashes back to you and makes you do things that may endanger yourself.  This isn’t insane, rather, a hindrance to your ability to function.”  She focused with such meaning in her voice while still using detached words unlike anybody I’ve ever heard before.  I consider carefully what she said and agree, and tell her so.  She smiles before taking a bite, causing the smile to fade.

        I saw my love outside the Korean restaurant.  I saw her, and wanted to call out my apologies to her.  When… I saw a man take her purse and reach around her with…  My heart broke, no, shattered while I watched the man escape with his prize underneath the mako-green twinge of the dark city.  I ran so fast that I can still feel the pain of my legs only slightly less than that of my heart.  She lay there bleeding in my arms as I filled her last sight of life.  I still hope she hear me say that I love her…  I still love her…  I felt her weak hand grasp my shoulder and fall to the cement…  I hope wherever she is, that she knows that… 

        I find myself telling the entire story to Tifa.  I don’t care if she read it in my file.  I just have to say it.  “A week later I was at her funeral.  All the flowers in the chapel shined vibrantly as in respect for her burial.  She looked like an angel.  The crystal shards that grew in the chapel from her radiance gleamed that afternoon and shined in her remembrance.  The guilt never went away.  I don’t think it ever will.  I love her now…  I will always love her.  I know that I must move on, but I just can’ t bring myself to do it.  Why did it take you for me to finally tell that story voluntarily?”

        “Maybe somehow I reminded you of her.”

        "Yeah maybe, yet… no.  Thank you.”

        We sit there studying each other for a while, and she lowers her head unprofessionally.  I am confused for a second and then realize that she is embarrassed.  Her embarrassment is cute on its own, with no comparison to any other.