Enjoy! Warmly, M.
The Butcher and The Lake
Once upon a time, there was a butcher. He wasn't always a butcher. Once, he was little boy who loved life and kick ball and his family. But though he thought his life fine indeed, the truth about his life and kickball and his family was dark. For his family loved with fists and rage. And so he found himself loving kick ball with fists and rage. And so the truth of his life was that of a train hurtling faster and faster away from truth and light... to fear and despair.
But, as a butcher, this man found pleasure and satisfaction. For it gratified him immensely to channel his fists and rage. But, as time passed, the pleasure from butchering became increasingly empty and hollow. For not only did it award him no recognition that pleased him, it failed to award him that which he craved more than all else... to feel alive.
Once, butchering filled him with pride and vigor. Now, after years of destruction, he often wondered, in the quiet of the night, in the quiet of his thoughts... if there was more to life... than this. Surely this was not as good as it would ever get?
Indeed, most opined his life magical. A hard scrabble story of rags to untold riches. Of a post card family and curios lined with glittering awards. But he knew the truth. Where it simmered and burned with uncomfortable intensity. In his heart and soul.
This life was not his life. It belonged to someone else. Someone he wasn't. Someone bastardized for the admiration and adulation and ridicule and scorn of others. Perhaps at one time, this life had been his life. But, the shorter the years before him and the longer the years behind him, this life was slowly but surely, transmuting into an intolerable prison from which there was no escape. While he marched with the inexorable gait of a dead man walking who beholds a future of endless darkness and pain.
Then... one morning... he awoke from a dream. A dream of mists and bells and damp cool air clinging to a sunrise over a rocky shoreline. In the dream... he saw a lake... at once grey and blue... at once crisp and murky... at once calm and threatening. Within... he sensed a presence... a truth... a something... a someone... that called to him... with gentle entreaty... come... come to me...
And so... he searched travel brochures and online travel guides with frenzied fervor... until... his breath caught in his throat... as he looked upon the lake in his dream. Thereupon, he informed his family that a short respite in the country was long overdue. Nothing long or extended. A jaunty holiday to restore his battered spirit from the intense glare of a demanding career that took and took and took and gave nothing in return.
When he arrived, his anticipation and anxiety crashed against his heart, every split second lurching him onto a fiercely chaotic roller coaster of feelings over feelings over feelings over feelings. But with a will of their own, his feet moved of their own accord. And soon, before he knew it, he was kneeling at the edge of the very lake in his dream. And, as he knelt there, unfamiliar emotions spoke to his heart and soul with tumultuous passion... and... care. Whereupon, he felt tears fall from his eyes... drop with poignant fullness... and shatter the spell that this place had inexplicably put upon his soul.
He startled in perplexed confusion. What witchcraft brought him here... stirred him so...! But as he prepared to stand and leave, he caught a glimpse of himself, distorted by the ripples caused by his tears, and stopped... aghast. For the reflection there was not that which he was accustomed to admiring in the glare of his rarified world of extraordinary largesse...
Instead, that which stared at him, from within the lake... was dark and beastly... with eyes heartless and soulless that stared with listless contempt at the man who walked the earth, as a butcher.
He collapsed. In horror. In disgust. In disbelief.
The reflection spoke with the rasp of an unthing: I am you. Am I not? Ah... am I not to your liking? But I am you! Am I not worth all that you have acquired and possessed... all that you have pilfered and pillaged... all that you have ravaged and defrauded for your own wealth, power, influence, aggrandizement? What did you expect... for all who worship at the altar of Sin... pay a steep price for that which is granted in material excess...
And as he listened, in mute sorrow... a soft wind blew across the lake, and upon it, was a voice: You have come...
And upon his cheek he felt the whisper of a tender caress... and within his soul, the fortress there crumbled, and he spake thus: I'm sorry. For all that I've done. For all that I've wrecked. For all that I've destroyed. I'm human. And... I thought that what I wanted was what I have. But now I see. What I have is nothing. For what is all the wealth in the world... what is a crown, a paper, a gown worth... when the cost is this...?! The ugliness of my soul, is repulsive, even to me. I despair... that there will ever be hope for me... that there will ever be life for me... that there will ever be love for me... in this lifetime...
Thereupon, the wind spoke: Listen... with your heart... and you will feel, pulsing there, within you, the heartbeat of a heart that still loves... Listen... with your soul... and you will feel, enduring there, within you, the breath of a soul that still hopes... You are not lost... For you have found you...
And the lake stilled. And as he looked upon the still waters... now blue and crisp and calm... his reflection rippled and murmured... until... he found himself staring at the little boy he once was. The little boy who loved life and kick ball and his family. And... as the man who was a butcher cried... so did the little boy... for all that both had lost... for all that both had found.
From that day forward... though it was not easy... for the course of truth and light is not always untroubled and effortless... the man who was the butcher and the little boy who loved life... lived... alive... and free.
Fin.
