He was disappointed, because he was in so much pain, and he wanted the pain to cease–without paying the price to make it stop. All the same, I told him what I thought best a human should hear when they are in pain: reality, and reality’s laughter. But when he made his way up the stairs I began to think Maybe he’s at home in mirages, maybe it makes no difference. Maybe he will chase after funny things all his life and, when the joke’s on him, he will have practiced enough at laughing at butterflies and soap bubbles that he will be ready to laugh of his own accord. Maybe I was too hard on him. Or maybe–and this is the hardest to bear, the hardest medicine to swallow–it doesn’t matter so much that my speeches about pain and pain’s necessity, about this being all we have, about how we should be thankful for what we’ve got or thankful for nothing, is as much mirage, is as much soap bubble and butterfly, as anything else. Maybe I shouldn’t have said a word to him; I should have left him on his way, left him limping through the house thinking whatever pain inspired. I should have left him to go swimming in reality’s pool, drinking of that pool, that pool that, if you approach closer, if you finally reach it to dive in, disappears, the way cheer disappears when it turns to sobs, the way hurt and cursing tears disappear when they turn to dancing, lithesome cheer.
Love the Dust 