Monarch

It bothered him; like the persistent soft mewing of a hungry cat outside his bedroom window, unseen but noticed nonetheless.  No matter his efforts to ignore its presence with busying himself in other interest, it hovered relentlessly, making itself known in a covert lingering; rustling grasses at the edge of a camp fire, invoking alarm over unseen dangers lurking in the dark unknown ready  to pounce and then devour a tenuous illusion of safety; smoky tendrils tenderly engulfing like a lovers delicate embrace, serving up imagery and conjecture whose purpose remained a needful spur into desperate nameless wanting. 

  His love for the coast was a siren over the decades; news of mansions sliding from their palisades downward upon churning deluge of mud into the Pacific Ocean invoked a private satisfying smirk; laments of real estate millions lost without insurance to cover such an event; true his was a petty nature.  Fires ravage the mountain retreat of his adolescence, an evil glee chuckled saying if he could not possess his haven then no one should.  He had created a private mythology, so when a Monarch butterfly appeared, it would be the spirit of a woman who he contrived spurned his love; it was romantic to consider that she mattered. He caught himself wearing a mask of satisfaction as he sprayed water in its direction as it approached towards the flower garden he was tending.

  He troubled over avoiding responsibility; such as when he did not call to say he had no words to reconcile a relationship impasse; how to soften the truth? He had just grown weary of charade and chose to let silence be his messenger.  He accepted he was from a family not unfamiliar with madness, his legacy. His resolve was that of creeping away from the vacuum of departure, such had been a lifetime of regimented servitude. No longer needing permission, as if that were ever necessary, to let go the masquerade encompassing dependable and reliable continence; artfully, he got by.  Would fear of rebuke be enough to ignore the gnawing in his gut? Long ago he had read such a physical upset was the harbinger to the advance of insanity…the sickness, not the social condition.  How liberating to consider the idea of welcoming such an onslaught as something new and exciting to experience.  He knew of no other so inclined to dare be committed to the premise, as a culture that questioned individual moment to moment soundness of mind, he no longer wished to be a hypocrite; he thought it better to be an honest lunatic.  

Rambling, how like his kinsmen.  But now so pedestrian; it no longer intrigued others as it had a century ago.   Eccentric now was just one of many character oddities one witness’ almost a commonality; competition for outrageousness that  had become a cruel current obsession suffered by celebrities.  Sell all the collected precious items and travel the globe, his weariness suggested, until the funds were exhausted.  When destitute, throw himself on the mercy of a consulate residing in a foreign land. Prostrate; beg to be returned to his birth place.  Ship his exhausted and broken spirit back to the land of his recollection, so the body could be buried in obscurity.  Even the rich are forgotten, so what matters to the device or circumstance?  It was in the not too distant past he would lean on creative expression as a salve to buttressing inner tempest.  Now the only vessel was too narrow for the burdens he brought on board. Swamped in the shoals, his craft he once trusted was no longer refuge for weathering his raging mental surf. 

The cabinet held more poisons than he could name, as none severed the intimate painful remorse.  Not only of love lost, or of opportunities cowardly forgone, but a general dissatisfaction that had been kept in rein by external haste and fearful dread; rendering a chain link fence of distractions.  It was as the only solace he could recall.  Once removed, he had no comfort to the presence of its demands for attention.  The query repeated over the course of his life by countless number of lips echoed the same inquiry. “Are you happy?” 

His honest, bewildered, and innocent response remained, ‘what’s that?’