The Wanderer by spikespetslayer

[dedra.livejournal.com]

Title: The Wanderer
Author: spikespetslayer
Fandom: None
Warning: none, except passing mention of the love that dares not speak it's name...and then it isn't overt
Summary: In the end, the choices that we make may or may not be our own...

Author's note: This may seem a little disjointed...I'm in an internet cafe in San Francisco, I'm not on my computer, I'm working on a Mac for the first time (for more info, read my journal entry for today--life is sucking big time, even on vacation)...but there was no way in the world that I was going to not post today, considering this is prompt 30(!) and time for the Goddess award...congrats to all of us who have made it!




In the end, when we review our lives in the mirror of memories and might-have-beens, we see the mistakes of our perceptions and the knowledge that change and age bring to us in the years between. There is always that question of right and wrong choices when you lie on a bed with the knowledge that you are greeting the end of your life. There is always regret, no matter how fully you lived and the things that you did; not for the road that you took, but the ones that you didn’t.

Tonight, perhaps my last night, I’m looking down those roads and I don’t like what I see in the dark. The choices that I made were the right ones for me at the time, but hindsight being twenty/twenty, I don’t know that I would make the same choices again given the same two paths.

That is why I’m here by myself instead of surrounded by friends and family. Why I’m alone in a field wondering why I have done the things that I did instead of believing the simple truths and miracles that I’ve seen. Jealousy brought me to this juncture and no matter how I have tried to live with my feelings I am unable to resolve that I was not loved like the others. I was sequestered and ostracized simply because of what he knew I would do in the end--what I was born to do. It’s hard to live with a psychic and keep your choices your own.

We had lived together for over three years. My adoration of him was complete at the beginning. I took every word from his mouth as a blessing to my ears and believed in every story that he used to illustrate his point of view. Such is the lot of the lover; to worship blindly, to believe wholeheartedly, to trust unconditionally.

Still, I saw miniscule cracks in the persona that he had created. True, he was charismatic; he always was. He could stop a crowd’s murmurs with a word and make them listen just with the dulcet tones of his voice. His origins didn’t make any difference at that point. Only what he spoke of--love, acceptance, eternity. Giving instead of taking, sharing instead of selfishness, life instead of death. It was such a radical thought for the times that it became the cry for revolution.

What they didn’t see was his preferential treatment of a woman that wasn’t fit to wash his feet, much less sit at his side. They didn’t see the way that he played brother against brother until they vied for his attention like children. They didn’t want to see the way that he treated me, like I was a lesser being because of what I was supposed to do.

He never credited me for giving up the easy life. I had money, power, influence, and I left it all behind to follow him like a tumbleweed in the wind. I went from riches to rags and became as rootless as the rest of them, walking endlessly from town to town to beg for my very existence. He wouldn’t let me contact my family to procure funds for our journeys. He always said that his father would provide the way--even if it was the courtesy of strangers that gave us meals when we starved or a place to lay our heads in our exhaustion.

I hear the rooster signal the approaching dawn and I’m tired. Exhausted by my own mental travails in the night as I go over the same thing repeatedly. Had I ignored the jealous whisperings of my heart, I would still be with friends and loved ones instead of sitting here against a twisted tree waiting for the sunrise.

I loved him. Perhaps it was more than just the platonic love that he espoused, but I loved him nonetheless. I have no excuse for what I have done, nor can I ever think to return to my companions without feeling the shame of it on my soul.

My fingers twist the belt from my robe into a knot and my heart breaks at the knowledge of what they are doing to him now. I set him up and he kissed me for the first and only time, greeting me with a squeeze of my shoulders and a firm press of warm lips to my cheek that would have thrilled my heart had it not been for the soldiers behind me. He is warmth and light and love, abandoned now for the cold and darkness of reality.

The silver burns my hand as it runs through my fingers. I toss it to the ground and curse myself, my love, and my God for making me betray the only man that I could have ever given myself to completely.

The dawn breaks and my heart shatters. I have chosen this road and will wander it forever, rootless and homeless. I will pay for my betrayal by loving no one and living until his return as a ghost on the plain of the living, unable to change or affect another life as I watch how my choice has played out in the great scheme.

I feel my neck snap as I step off the gnarled root that holds me aloft, then my feet hit the ground with a jar that nearly breaks my ankles. Turning, I look at my dangling body, suspended between heaven and hell by the silken cord that used to knot my robes. I will always be between heaven and hell--such is the lot of the betrayer. Such is the path that I’ve taken.

In the end, I didn’t have much choice, did I?

Comments

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Oh Judas, Judas, Judas. You're always had a choice, you just didn't believe it. That was a brave and sympathetic interpretation of a very well-known story. Full of feeling and loss and regret recognised too late. Well done.

[dedra.livejournal.com]

Thank you...very much...