He had
an eye for heartache.
Not
the usual flutter of disappointment
affecting
an otherwise amiable disposition during daily routines;
but
miserable sorrow that unexpectedly scuttles hope
without
warning.
The kind
of awesome despair that dispels routines and confuses even the
most purposeful of agenda’s;
leaving
in its wake a series of meaningless, tattered, and unrelated actions of numbed
pantomime.
When he spotted its occurrence,
others
would sense his sensitivity for noticing its approach;
so
then rallied towards him as if his company would harbor them
from
the sheer terror of facing personal pain.
His
presence would soothingly grant them resolve
as
whispered encouragement for distancing themselves
from
the practice of suffering;
where sidestepping
personal responsibility to change
was an
accepted exercise of denial rarely challenged as impractical
since there were
never consequences to dreaming large.
It
dawned on him,
eventually,
that
his habitual gravity towards the drama of discontent
was a tacit
agreement of limiting yokes as just the way of life.
That
somehow, in commiserating that notion
as
fact with others,
could,
from a
point of view,
be construed
as comfort in a shared surrender to a lonely,
desperate,
sort
of endeavor defined as compromise.
