Battle of Mind and Soul

Click, clack.

Back and forth balls of steel swinging on a string, one stops and the other starts, impossible to escape from the laws of motion. I watch the sway of the dancers endlessly trapped in their line, predictable, knowable, understood. Light reflects off of the representation of the laws of nature, and I swing back and forth unsure if what I am doing is what should be done.

I slowly pull myself away from my workstation white lab coat swirling around me as I walk down the hallway to clock out for the day. My locker looms, this is the devil’s last chance to pull me away from my decision. I hang up my coat with decisive movements and exchange it for a torn leather jacket to match my faded blue jeans. I take a deep breath and slide my glasses case out of one coat and into the other. The decision is made, I turn away letting the door slam shut, the final clash of rolling thunder of a raging storm all that remains now is calm.

It is laughably easy to walk out the front door, the security guard barely even glancing at me. I peel out of the driveway, the best impression of a bat out of Hell that I have ever given, the implications of what I have just done still pressed down deep within my mind. I spare only a brief wish that I could turn around and follow the ’57 Chevy I pass going the opposite direction.

I blur past the city, and the fields out into the forest where only trees stand to bear witness to what I am about to do. The clouds reach far above me, pillars of Heaven stained red by the setting sun. I slowly open the case in my hand, a flash of light blinds my eyes for a moment. She is awake. Buzzing fills my ears before I can convince my eyes to open. Golden dust and lacy wings.

Dried-up tears stain the tiny face of the one fluttering in front of me, a heartbeat, a wingbeat, and then she is gone, leaving only her memory behind. The battle of fire and ice has come to an end within my heart, the ice of my fact loving mind melted by the fire burning in my soul for all living things. Slowly tears slip down my face as I sink to my knees in the grass. I have destroyed my entire life for this, to leave no trace of something Other. Knowledge sacrificed on the altar of morality in exchange for life. Now there is only one question, was it worth it?