THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL

Vines creeped up the broken walls of a ruined chapel and shattered stained glass littered the floor. Searcher entered, seeking shelter from the cold wind. The firelight from the wanderer's camp still flickered in his mind.
Searcher stood before the cracked altar, staring at a worn-out Bible left behind. He never prayed, never believed, but tonight, something in him was stirred. Not kneeling- he refused- but he spoke aloud: "If you're real...then why did you make life this way?"
Silence filled the air. Only the wind whispered through broken windows. He gripped the Bible tight enough to rip the pages.
"Are you just watching while we rot?" His anger rose, but then his gaze fell to a shattered piece of stained glass on the floor. There he saw his own reflection, broken and distorted. A thought pierced through his cynicism: "Maybe I'm only seeing pieces, not the full picture."
The idea immediately sickened him. He shook it off, kicking the glass aside and as he turned to leave, a figure stood in the doorway. It wasn't real--just a memory. His lost lover: She wasn't speaking, but her presence burned in his mind. He remembered how she saw beauty in the world, even in it's flaws.
"Maybe we don't have to understand it all. Maybe we just have to live."
He snarled at the hallucinations and replied: "You were wrong."
But as the wind rushed through the chapel, carrying dust and whispers, he wondered- what if she wasn't?
His past still very much haunted him, but was it a curse...or a lesson?

Author's Note

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