A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven L. Peck

Strange, how a moment of existence can cut so deeply into our being that while ages pass unnoticed, a brief love can structure and define the very topology of our consciousness ever after.

I rubbed her hand and she sighed; wasn’t that meaning? Wasn’t that something we could cling to? I could be with this other. I could form no other relation, but maybe her hand in mine was enough, both sufficient and necessary.

Homogeneity everywhere, endlessly stretching into an eternity of monotony.

I thought of the mountains and forests I remembered from my life as I climbed. I thought of the intricate structure of an ant’s cuticle. How delicate the song of a bird, nestled in the twisted branches of a towering pine, sounds spilling into the cool morning. I thought of the zippered feathers of a sparrow and of its patterned colors, the banded mottling of its breast, its tiny feet curled round the rough brown bark, cracked and furrowed, giving purchase to those tiny clawed feet.

What is love that it has such power? Whatever it is, it seems unlikely this God who placed me here knows anything about it. If it loved me in the least, could it inflict what it has upon me? Who can understand? Once I feared to say such things, dreading a worse punishment. But what worse fate could there be? To remember love and know it is unattainable? To know love wanders somewhere light-years and light-years distant, ever knowing it is forever out of reach? Forever hidden?

There is a despair that goes deeper than existence; it runs to the marrow of consciousness, to the seat of the soul.

Anticipation is a gift. Perhaps there is none greater. Anticipation is born of hope. Indeed it is hope’s finest expression. In hope’s loss, however, is the greatest despair.