When Silence kills a person

At last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which the perishing tree might be saved. (It was the sixteenth day of the first month.) Along he went into his garden, and bowed down before the withered tree, and spoke to it, saying: "Now deign, I beseech you, once more to bloom, because I am going to die in your stead."

Then under that tree he spread a white cloth, and divers coverings, and sat down upon the coverings, and performed hara-kiri after the fashion of a samurai. And the ghost of him went into the blood soaked tree, and made it blossom in that same hour.

And every year it still blooms on the sixteenth day of the first month, in the season of snow - Jiu-Roku-Zakura (traditional Japanese story)



We broke up in the end in a New Norfolk swing park. We couldn't even be bothered to argue in the end. We argued for an hour up to that point. I offered her a cup of tea, it started an argument. A child came in and asked if I was his new Daddy. She said I was no one. She didn't mean it like that, she was just deflecting his curiosity, not building his hopes up - but what if she did mean it? And then she kept saying I thought she was stupid...same argument, over and over again...

One argument spilled into another argument into another argument. For once I was roused from my apathy. I even argued back. I had confrontation, won't seek it, certainly run from it. Not this time....

It had to be New Norfolk as well. The place I felt lonelier than I ever have in my whole life when I was a kid. A Tasmanian town miles from home. Where Dad dropped me off in a car park after a one hour drive where we didn't talk to each other, dropped me off early in the works car park, and then drove away, leaving me standing there, life over, about to start a new job, hopeless, hapless, in a novelty tie to try and make people like me. Rain fell, I had no one to talk to, and no hope....

I always storm off and then wait for people to catch up with me. I hate that about myself. I stormed off mid argument, as the latter words in the argument died out and fell to the floor. I then stopped, waited for her to catch up with me, and then sat on a swing and waited. Some kids kicked a ball in my direction. I kicked it back. Such a simple action, compared to everything else...

He sat on the rusted swing in the concreted rusting hulk that used to be New Norfolk’s most impressive swing park. The bucket seat spun and twisted as he sat. He looked at his shoes, filthy, rotting trainers. He had come to her house just to write - to try and win a writing challenge. Just for something to do on a public holiday. He knew their relationship wasn't work. He kissed her much harder than she kissed him lately, and as the song might say, he could only pretend for so long she wasn't that hungry...

They didn't argue much until today. Everything came out today. Every little slight. Every little moment - but as the philosophy he lived by went, it wasn't about the tree. It was about someone else. Her ex boyfriend. The scrunchy faced man who never really left. He could impress her with wisdom, sitcom knowledge and Japanese folks tales, but he wasn't him...

She followed him in the end. She tried to talk to him. She tried to calm things down, she tried to explain. She tried to say all the things that would make him stay. She didn't mean any of them, but maybe in time she would. She sat on a swing next to him and spoke softly, gently, she looked amazing, way out of his league. She said she had things to work out, work things out with the scrunchy faced man. She smiled, she invoked the spell of George and Mildred, their favourite sitcom...then she leaned from her swing to his, and kissed him so deeply, so wondrously, it hurt....

He still walked away, pulled away. It wasn't enough. She didn't love him. She could try to, but she didn't. So he walked away. He died in her stead. The tree in the swing park wasn't glorious or glamorous or beautiful or blood soaked like in the story - it had a cat up it that ferociously pawed in their direction with aggressive angst. It didn't make his sacrifice feel any less painful. In time, she would call his name 3 times as he walked away. The third time she called his name, she said it with the most aching of poignancy. Desperate poignancy. It didn't matter, he still walked away.

She needed to bloom. Bloom with someone else. Blossom with a man who she loved. Or maybe he was fucking selfish and walking way from something wonderful because he was immature. The Japanese didn't have a folk tale about that that he knew of...

He drove home, and when he got home, he slumped on the couch, bored. He sat in his house. It was dark. It had been a long drive illuminated only by the flickering lights of the laptop. His world had changed. He looked at his bookshelf. All books about Japanese philosophy, Brazilian educators, people who made a difference spelling wisdom out to the masses. They had educated him many times over these books. And in the space of a few hours, he had walked away from something wonderful. He wasn't sure if it was noble, sacrificial, or plain dumb...

No one will ever know how hard it was to walk away from that kiss. It was almost impossible. I fell under it like a spell...a damn spell...

But it meant nothing...

He checked his phone, no text messages. He checked his Facebook page. There were no messages with x or o at the end. It was truly over.

He checked his writing journal. Someone told him he was trite and tedious, and in every short story writing contest someone sent in the same story he had written time and again. "Didn't address the challenge" and "garden variety" stood out to him. He didn't let it sink in - he had made his choice in life and in story telling....he turned off his computer and went back to the couch to drink orange juice in silence...

He was alone...

We build our life’s for the good of other people whether we want to or not. Every one of us, every person on a computer, every person on the plane with me, every person running on a beach, we are who we are because of other people. There's no true individuals. We convince ourselves that the CD we bought, the hat we wear, the smile we perfected, the places we holiday, that we picked them on our own. We didn't. It started as soon as you could talk to someone. As soon as you could connect with another person, they shaped you, and unless you lived in a cave your whole life, they are still there. They made you. You really don't have much say in the matter...

I miss you Mildred. Blossom well...