Old Soul

He stared out the window at the top of white clouds. The stewardess brought his drink and had to nudge him for his attention. He smiled and gave her a fifty dollar tip and went back to staring out the window. He thought,"All that I have been..what have I done to deserve life after life?"

Sipping his drink of iced vodka and a slice of lime...he looked down to see a bird sailing in the updrafts. It would disappear in the clouds and reappear in the sunlight....much like his life. "I long for love...yet I despise the effort...I still despise the dammed effort" he mumbled to himself.

His thoughts came bleeding from his soul.

God...I have been commanders of legions! I have been soldiers, peasants, priests, rich and poor, sainted and soiled.....what sanity is it that hands me this fate....are you amused by the depth of my sorrow and the height of my lust......do you taste the temptations of my soul and spit out my works as bitter fruits?

I chase death like a child in the meadow chases a moth....fear has long faded into boredom and a sword through my heart is but a step of pain to the next form of scribbled mediocrity in the scrap books of history..... yet...you shall indeed have your way until I am the last being on this ship of Eden.

I have dined with the Pharaohs, slept with queens and cut kings asunder! Starved in the deserts and feasted on the dust of the human race...and what...what is my fondest memory...the smile of my brother Lord...(out loud)....THE SMILE OF MY BROTHER!

Every passenger on the plane looked at him as the stewardess rushed to ask if he was OK? He waved her away and stared out the window again. The bleeding of his soul continued.

This conversation takes place every few thousand years and you give me the same answer...."No".....what else could I possibly learn....I've crawled on my belly with dignity and stood on your mountains with honest pride....is it love that bonds me to immortality or is it wrath...yours or mine? Help me find one more tear Lord....drop it on a star and make another world of beings who know pain and joy. Salt a sea where lovers lay on the shore and children play in the waves.

Paradise...blah...blah...blah.....a rotten peach is paradise to a starving man! They aren't going to get it....hell...I don't get it and I've been through the gauntlet more than anyone! Gabriel has blown his trumpet countless times and the whole dammed lot of us are amazed at our reflections in his shining horn! The only one who got it....you created to get it!

Well...perhaps I should just get drunk again and beg the altar stones for blood. A smile from the scent of smoke started it all. Am I only the gardens to feed the beasts? Am I the beast who tramples your gardens? You know...the earth trembles much more these days...as I do. Should I become the least of all that you have created....this least will eternally love you...not because of your power to destroy me....Oh Lord...there is nothing left for me to love.... but you.

And Cain cried.