The Conversation Has Changed

The cool wind atop the hill estate blew through the smoldering rubble of the manor. Overcast skies softened the light on her skin and the surrounding grass fields radiated a lush green. Russet wisps of her hair wandered over her cheeks which grew pale in the chilly morning air. Not a tear; as with everything in life she accepted loss to complications. She held his hand as they tread cautiously through the remains. The blackened indiscriminant shards of wood and glass crunched under their steps. Smoke was rising from embers still burning the night’s memory with a vengeance. A grand structure once stood tall in this very place, a home filled with memories passing on the legacy of a family. Reduced to ashes it is more than a mere memory now.

He had changed in the time of his absence. The guilt of his parents’ deaths had pushed him away from those closest to him, but now he was a man wholly reconstructed by an ideal. His guilt and his need for revenge transformed into a fight for justice. The mask he bore was no longer that of a nocturnal vigilante but that of a man he once was. He loved her. He always has, but his pursuit of an ideal was greater than her. It was greater than him. He accepted his solitude as a necessity much like his secrecy. It was difficult to abandon love for something so unknown and infinite. There is the fight and nothing else, no one else. In the outer realms of legend, he was no longer merely a man.

At a point in my life where they seem to have run rampant, I’m exhausted. What is it I’m so afraid of? What am I running from, clinging to their distraction? Looking at my life in hindsight I notice a common pattern and I question the very roots of reasoning for leaving home. I do not consider myself a weak person, though there are several ex-companions that would argue otherwise. At the core I have few fears, most of which are trivial, superficial, and can be overcome with knowledge and understanding. But drowning in thought, a quiet so loud I can hear its resonance, I’ve learned what it is I fear more than anything in the world. Being alone. Anyone that has read anything I’ve written would notice the undertones of solitude leaking, perhaps gushing, from words. I scramble to cram thoughts and distractions into my mind in fear that any small void unfilled will be filled with fear itself.

It’s an unfortunate fear to have, very un-masculine of me. Consider our iconic man; the brawny, broad-shouldered hero of myth and legend. Whether he wears a cape and red underpants, or orders a vodka martini (shaken, not stirred), or is a titan of 1960s Madison Avenue, he is the man we epitomize. Ordinary young men furiously emulate bulging biceps while acting devil may care. Women swoon at the mere thought of these legendary men they want but cannot have. This is society’s ideal man, evolutionary perfection we chiseled from stone earth from the time of Odysseus to Indiana. These men fear nothing, not beast, nor man, nor solitude. In fact, solitude is the string that ties these legends together. Every iconic hero embraces solitude as the ideal partner, never held down by a tangible companion.

Instead they are weighed down by an ideal. Perhaps it was distrust, or a death, or guilt that led them to this path of enlightenment. Once they elevate mortal feelings to true sense of purpose, the ideal becomes beneficiary of body, mind and soul. There is nothing left for anything or anyone else. An ideal. Is love an ideal? I used to believe in love, as a naïve man does. Why do our heroes never fight for love? Is it a quality we reserve for women? What dangers are the keepers of our ancestry warning us of with tales of solitary heroes? What do I believe in enough to abandon all? Nothing. Perhaps I am still too young. An ideal worth sacrificing everything for, that is what I need to shed this fear of solitude. Until then I must rely on my ability to act and hope that one day I can’t tell the difference between reality and character I’m playing. The world my theatre, friends and family my audience, a Kaufman-esque tribute: the story of my life.