Finn's Journey CHP 2

by CurtisCLennon© Copyright CurtisCLennon. All rights reserved. (1547 words)

Saturday March 31 1918
Day 2

I have not seen my reflection now for many days. My hands, chest and arms, thickly bruised, welted with scars; it is perhaps, small mercy I cannot. My face bore the brunt of the violence meted out that day. Still, I wake from fitful sleep to smell my assailant’s befouled breath, feel the dispassionate precision with which every blow landed from those blooded, bruised hands – weeping gloriosa -- forever creeping towards me.
That I notice my appearance, is itself truth to how different this morning is – the inertia of these past few days now broken. Now that I have begun, time is far too precious to waste. This morning, immediately upon awakening, as though compelled by some inner force, I trekked these few paces to this improvisation that serves purpose as writing desk, opened this journal and began to write all what you have so far, read.
From the moment I began, I have felt as though awakened from near lifelessness, as one reawakened, to feelings and thoughts I no longer thought I was capable.
What do I know for sure?
I know that for a long-time yet, my name will stir deep hatreds, incur the most terrible curses and invoke the wrath of many a man, woman and child, who know something, anything of my tale. That is my lot, and so be it. This knowledge only pains me however, in the cruelness of my recurrent dreams, the one that begins in rapture, and I breathe the air as a free man, my freedom won through the workings of a most brilliant plan.... And there it is reader, the point where the pain of reality never fails to creep basely back in. For even such foolish thoughts bent upon my escaping, must call on the furthest reaches of imaginings. All too soon, I remember there is no one inside or outside these impregnable walls, who might wish me any other than a more horrifying fate then the one I now face. Not a single soul exists to make appeal to my captors, for who might plead my innocence? No one among those I once called comrade, with a mind to take on my rescue. How am I certain of this?
Because I, no less, have ensured it should be so. Indeed, I cannot argue with any vigour against these damning judgements; I cannot hide behind excuses, for it was I, no less, who chose to go on. To live too by the gun, and no matter how clouded, or how twisted my motives, fear and beliefs, I must recognise and come to accept this. Thus, I will replay events slowly, remember the man I was, someone who once would not have begun to think his liberty might soon end. Yet, I continued to build my house on unsafe ground, and then chose to stay too long within its unsteady walls. I, who intended moving out at a moment’s notice, delayed and stalled, until it was too late. Until then, I thought a return to my former life not yet beyond all hope. Plans, possibilities, not yet beyond redemption? I did believe it, didn’t I? That elsewhere, beneath all the madness, laid unshakable foundations? That after all, there exists some order. That in time, some plan or meaning, would make itself known. The final proof however, naught but a reproof.
Here then, denied candlelight, I will not waste the long hours that deny me sleep but instead, steep myself in my past, play out my life so far, before my eyes. Carefully organise thoughts and memories, so by day I can write quickly, with clarity, try to write this heartfelt confession, as explanation.
I do not write out of spite, or, as I may have first thought, from revenge. Nor is this journal an apology. I have all but abandoned hope of gaining absolution, whether from God, my former comrades, or even in the deepest recesses existing in my own mind. What hope remains can only come from the writing itself. I seek nothing beyond understanding.
Already, I see my thoughts have taken me late into the day. Why, you may ask, do I choose to linger upon these most painful of memories, even as the clock of my own fate, wound too fast, set to run out in days, hours…minutes. Nevertheless, I am after all, the pitiful architect of this, my own purgatory.
Nevertheless, why indeed choose to begin writing on that particular morning, and not another?
Beginnings should never be simple, but I chose that morning’s bike ride for the simplest of reasons, as the moment my journey began. From this nadir of my earthly being, I will navigate the past, make sense of my present, and bring unholy order to the ebb and flow of my life so far. That day, the day my brother left this mortal existence the most painful of all my memories. To consider revisiting the places I intend to from now, I knew I must first prove able to write of that darkest of days. A test not merely of my mettle, but of my ability to continue with this tale. To finish what I have begun, before my journey’s end.
Once, scripture graciously helped me believe I walked along the right paths, but the bible, which sits unopened on the table beside my bed, no longer grants me any comfort. It is true, I tell myself, I once believed it never too late for salvation. My heart tells me now however, my beliefs are but relics from a bygone age, and in truth, for me, too late. Nevertheless, I keep it in view, and it sits there, untouched, black and still, smug and sure as the final damming judgement upon my soul will be. It reminds me too, the word of God never absented from my life, indeed, was always present, that I alone chose to ignore it.
So then, I crave understanding. The why of things. Trace my broken shadow’s path, while I remain here, one held so lowly in my captors eyes they choose not to tell me any word of my fate, nor even, whether soon or late the end might come.
How strange the contrast, the change I have undergone. From the life I vowed to lead and the one I took up. The once bold decisions made by the newly baptised man, so different from the meeker version that spent his days as a cloistered angel. All safe from vice and sin, sheltered from the conflict and passion of momentous times – the greatest of all war’s just ended, the old world ended forever in the rising blood tide. Though not for me. My life by then already long determined. Attuned to lock and key, immured safe behind thick seminary walls. Seven years spent pious and devout and seven years cast aside, merely a month shy of my ordination. A man of God indeed? From sacred to profane in one mighty leap - from heavenward precipice into hellish inferno. And the lightning speed in which it all occurred, it strikes me as incredible, but then perhaps it is usual for a man in my circumstances, to see his life as too brief an existence.
I will resist the urge to write in haste, though I am aware, I might be taken from here at anytime. I know so much of what I write, and hope to gain in understanding; hinges upon getting this right. What I reap must come from this act of self-administered penance. Honesty must prove the driving force behind my reason for writing. While it torments me to consider my story might remain unfinished, unread by anyone, I ask much of myself to finish it. All decision, all control over my life, now gone, I am no longer able to influence, pray for, advise or counsel, the many souls I once did. In writing this, comes admission, it is all I have left.
To lighten the burden, is this all I truthfully ask?
The discipline of writing will heighten memory, puff out meanings, vitalise, spinning gloriole colours through which I will return and see the making of my past, retrace both the precarious as well as the surefooted footsteps leading me here. Relive it all, reborrow, and so, in mind at least, retake what once was undeniably mine alone. Recolour the colours of things remembered. Most mercifully too, will help swallow up whatever time is hereto left me.
For who would suppose even morning’s bright summer sun would confer upon me a daily cruelty? With unbroken regularity, this, my pitiless foe, marks each new day that passes. But even it cannot pierce into the deepest corners, the places I must frequent, for I know keeping this, my jail journal, has already granted me some repose, some comfort in these most testing times.
For me, change came late. Violence and fear, twin visitations, though mercifully absent most of my life have since these past few days flowed uninterrupted. Once, born, they have coursed steadily downwards, much as spontaneity of streams spring up in heavy rainfall.
Allow me then dear reader; take you next a little way into my recent past.