The Only Thing We Cannot Share

In my hospital gown, laying in my hospital bed, accompanied only by my own thoughts, I cried. The truest tears of my life. Plucked away from a life I could not remember I had no reference by which to compare my confusion and sorrow. Suffice to say that it ran deep as I imagined my soul would allow. I was a lost little boy with no comfort, no past and no way to create a future. And Now was a confusing linened Void and a broken man-child without comfort. I cried from the depths and not a soul was there to comfort or mock me, a unicycle-chainsaw juggler without an audience, practicing for a performance I would never give.

Who am I when there is no one there? When is now after time has gone? Run off with space or some other higher dimension to conduct this experiment in which I am the control. Or, perhaps I was intended for the experiment when an unforeseeable emergency ran off all figures of authority, leaving only me and a handful of species to be rescued by activists and carelessly thrust back into our "Natural Environments".

If those species were there, I could not detect them. I detected no one at all. Why? How long had I been here, worrying and thinking myself to the brink of falling apart completely?

No! I thought. I am not falling apart. I am already apart. And I now understand the nature of my tears. I am away. ALL the way away. Gone, dead! This is what the Other Side looks like. Whatever achievements or mistakes I may have made are on the other side of that Other Side.

I drew a few breaths and considered this new possibility. When lovers leave the world together do they get to share a room like this? Or are they pried apart at that singularity and sent, each to their own? How dismal a thought!

Then, with twin-evil-twin certainty I became aware of two opposite realities. I heard footsteps nearing my room as some thudding emotion settled into my mind. The air in my lungs was real and there was no ring on my finger, nor my heart. I was alive and I had no love. Would I trade that combination for its opposite?

The footsteps turned some distant corner and faded away quietly until the machinery of keeping people from dying became the sole sound. I gathered my emotions and drifted into a dream.....

Is it truth that loneliness is the only thing we cannot share?

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© 2016 Phillip W Parsons

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Myra Fellows

I wanted to take time to think on a drive today but instead, I am going to knee jerk write and then maybe come back with another perspective. For now, I will brain spew.
This was written over 3 years ago. Who knows what sparked it. The reality is, there is a huge difference between alone and loneliness. When one is "alone" they are usually healthy and self-sufficient. They can make their own meals, drive, shop, pay bills, have a warm home, etc. Even without a mate, one can be perfectly peaceful alone. Not everyone, as it takes time and emotional growth and having mental health, but overall alone is not necessarily lonely. Lonely is when one does not have basic needs met. Most humans experience loneliness when they become sick. Not breaking a limb type sick...Sick like too weak to eat, drink or go to the bathroom. Unable to dress oneself or have the capacity to see the joy in anything. Loneliness can happen after a major trauma where one can no longer relate to anyone they know or have known. They are a stranger among the "normal" people. The homeless can tell you about this kind of loneliness. They can also tell you how they would not go back to trying to live among those who have a "normal" life.
Your writing gives pause to the reader. Being alone is comfortable. Loneliness is uncomfortable. It is the precursor to death if it persists.