Rise and Fall

A man faces his past, and possibly a new beginning. If only he finds the will to get back up and try again.

He knows this is a dream. For one thing, he's definitely looking down at a 21 year-old version of himself, curled up in a ball upon the ground at his feet in this filthy underpass. For another, the sky seems to be talking to him, or at him, though he cannot quite hear what it is saying.

                He tilts his head, trying to find something familiar in this skinny, emaciated and seemingly hopeless figure. It's like trying to recognise someone you last met as a child. He'd forgotten this person. This frankly quite incredible person, if he does say so himself.

                Because this man...this boy, he should say, despite how pathetic and abandoned he appears, does have hope.

                He knows...so much hope brims in that prominent ribcage; it doesn’t matter how weak or filthy the body appears. Hope flows through every drop of blood within.

                A smile drifts to his lips. Of course, he remembers this person. The smile is both fond and ironic; here he stands, arguably quite a lot fatter than he once was, dressed in clean, stylish clothes, well groomed and healthy. Yet he has about as much hope in his entire body as this younger version of himself has in a single, twig-like finger.

                How funny life could be sometimes.

                The figure stirs as though becoming aware of his presence, and he wonders if this is a dream where he will have to actually face the judgement of his past, to talk with the footprints he left behind him.

                The whippet body unfurls, the almost cherubic face lifting to look upwards towards him. But, the dark eyes study the space around and slide through him, unseeing.

                That face...he hasn’t aged that badly, considering. A few wrinkles now, yes, but his family genes granted their magic to him as they have done to so many of his relatives. He looks good for his age. His hair doesn’t though...where did all the colour go so quickly?

                For now, his younger self has flyaway locks of curly black hair, miraculously clean but unkempt. Didn't he used to wash it out every evening in the park fountains? And scrub his face and hands clean of grime to better his chances of finding a job.

                What has he done?

                This person had nothing. No family. No money. No reasonable chance at survival. He lived on the streets for three damn months. He dragged himself under a chain link face, risked getting shot and ended up clinging to life on the streets of the Land of the Free.

                With nothing but a dream to keep him going.

                What did he achieve? Everything. He started off at the bottom, and little by little he collected together a life in this country that had started small and had become...massive. A successful business, fame, doing what he loved for a living, a family...

                He'd never given up then. So why had he done so now?

                Maybe it was because he'd never failed back then. He hadn't had anything to start with. Yes, he'd made a few mistakes and slip-ups along the way, but nothing monumental; he'd continued on the upwards trajectory.

                This time he'd lost it all. He had lost it all. Wife: gone. Children: practically gone, she'd taken them away. Money: gone. He'd built his life upon foundations made of wood rotten on the inside. It had seemed unshakeable, but had collapsed with him standing atop it. Leaving him broken.

                Distantly, he can hear voices yelling as though they are the ones within a dream. So far away.

                He crouches down to peer right into that youthful face, thin, but the eyes are alight and shining with strength that this poverty cannot touch. How opposite he must look now.

                The eyes seem to find him, and burn into his soul as they sparkle slightly with sympathy, affection and amused faith.

                Faith. Faith and wisdom, just like the expressions he'd see on his mother's face when he told her of his dreams as a child. How they'd all believed in him.

                "Alright." He says softly, "I'll try again."

                That smile brightens a little, as his past studies him and drinks him in as though he's the most wonderful thing on Earth. Still on Earth.

                He sighs, straightens and turns back to face where he came from...or perhaps to face away from the past and towards the future he still cannot quite see.

                Dread whispers into his determination, creating doubt in his wake at the memory of what he's done, what pain he knows is waiting for him over there. A lot of damage control needs doing over there.

                But, he feels that belief behind him, driving him forward. He can build it all again. He can learn to avoid those weak foundations, and build something stronger in the rubble of his success. He can get it all back.

                He will.