Pounding

Relentless agony in the mornings, again.

The headache returned. Pounding. Not that it ever left. Pounding. The ache felt as an alien hand. Pounding. Expanding within his skull. Pounding. Jagged nails puncturing grey flesh. Pounding. Knuckles cracking dry bone. Pounding. Pounding with the throb of distant drums not distant. An enemy suffered, not seen.

With effort, legs were tossed over the edge of the bed as one tosses an anchor to the sea, feet hitting floor with the same sense of dull remorselessness. His body shot upward as if limbs were yanked by chains, ache shooting in tendons jerked into the mother of the day. The floor felt cold as ocean depth and eyes struggled to focus on muted shades of blue and grey. Beard grew as garden untended, his face a tangle of wiry weeds black and grey. He thought of shaving, thought of it often. But thought was about as far as he got, about as far as he was going to get. A man with purpose shaved. A man with vision did not. He had neither. And the weight of lying pulled as a rough braided noose around his agents of creation.

Lifting one foot before the other as a mountain climber plowing an angry gale, he resisted the man waiting, the one he could neither recognize nor avoid, the one that would stare back with the emptiness of a starless night. The mirror hung before him as judge, condemning in silent gaze, a reflection stark like winter to the leafless tree. He knew the look. He knew the judgment. He knew it was true. He knew he was guilty. And if the lave were a cliff, he would toss himself to oblivion, his body to break on the rocks as his soul by fate.

To his left was shaving cream. To his right, his razor. With the tremble of an old man, he reached to turn the spigot, warm water mocking his cold heart. Steam rose before a weeping mirror. Water flowed, melodious, hypnotising, ignorant. Endless. Like an exam not studied. Like a tunnel dark. Like the pounding in the back of his head. Mornings were a private hell, the lava within a sleeping volcano.

He turned the water off, wiped the sweat from his unshaven face and prepared for the day. A child would dance on that volcano, with flowers and smiles, and he would smile back.

Reviews

[AutumnStorm]

An absolutely gorgeous piece of writing. The repetitions used for emphasis is the first noteworthy example, but this is a chapter of quotes as in one wants to pick up individual phrases, hold them high for admiration and watch the light as it dances within them. Gems. The wonderful naval references used with great imagination and expertise and the untended garden. Dull remorselessness - as heavy-laden in sound as in meaning. The passage that reads 'he resisted the man waiting, the one he could neither recognize nor avoid, the one that would stare back with the emptiness of a starless night. The mirror hung before him as judge, condemning in silent gaze,' and the weeping mirror, the weeping mirror is indelible. I know I shall think of it in my rocking chair.