Words

“Words, Words, Words.” – Hamlet, William Shakespeare –

It has passed. Happiness and contentment are leaking through your eyes, slowly abandoning your confused soul. Electricity, shy and reluctant, shoots through your body to awaken your numbed senses, and you suddenly remember that you’ve been left alone in the cold. The moment dies slowly, and your memory tries to deceive you, creating an ephemeral image of it in the back of your mind. You shake that off like an old ghost and hold on stronger to the dying seconds, but your strength can never match the mighty powers of Time. You need to freeze it beyond his penetrating gaze before it fades away forever. And in your desperation you turn to another enemy for help, allying with Words in order to keep the moment alive.

“Words, Words, Words.” Just Words… Mere Words… At first your imagination doesn’t help and you can’t come up with anything of your own, so you need to “borrow” someone else’s. Kundera’s Words perhaps, audacious and somewhat original. Or maybe those of T. S. Elliot, vague like a dream. Auden’s Words prove to be helpful, simple arrows hitting their target. Or you can always sing some of Dickenson’s, pure emotions killed and phrased, balanced by the vibrant fantasies of Marquez. Kafka’s images come up often; horrific shadows passing through your mind, interrupted by the drunken blabbers of Hemingway. You remember a line from a Shakespearean play, humorous and smart, and you add another written by Wilde, refined like a good bottle of wine. Eventually, you’ll end up just where you started; “Words, Words, Words.”

And as the fighting draws to an end, you finally build up courage to use some of your own. You start slowly, still uncertain of your steps along the newly discovered path, but after a while, Words start flooding through you. Your thoughts are transformed perfectly, and your Words start taking a Life of their own, sucking up your strength with every breath they take. And just before it all ends, you realize that at some point during battle allegiances have shifted, and you were betrayed. Time is defeated, just as you wanted, and the moment is captured, just as you wanted. Yet, as you lay down your shield and start looking at the life that came out of you, you see a disfigured shape of happiness, cold and alien. And you’re left with nothing but that horrible and insatiable feeling of Emptiness, like a ghost warrior roaming the earth in search for a battle that has already ended.