It lies by the side of the road, with whatever was written inside it already illegible, just a sodden clot by now. The cold, the rain, the sleet and snow, the general malice of time, have done their work. The words once inside have dissolved, disappeared without a trace as they say. Yet some trace must remain if only in our mind, or we would not even mention the phrase at all. Or maybe it is not the words that are worth not even the vaguest mention, but the road ahead, or behind. Who knows? It scarcely matters. Like the unkillable weeds by the side of the road, the words persist. Somebody wrote the words that were once inside--a shopping list, directions to the nearest town, a love letter? Or left the pages blank. Maybe that's what matters. The pages not written on, the hope not yet fulfilled, the promise not yet kept.
He had risen the middle of the night, cold, shivering, and reached for the heaviest robe he could find. Reaching into the pocket, he found the three pens there, one thick and heavy--a marker, really, and two pens, each thin. He felt a compulsion to turn on every light in the house, as if to say: We are still here.
Was that Death standing there by the side of the road, grinning? As if to say, vanity of vanities. Mother used to say that to be poor was to be dead. Then she would pause, thinking better of it. No, the dead don't suffer. Sleep, that small foretaste of death, would not come, but even the thought of it was sweet.
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care/ The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath/ Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course/ Chief nourisher in life's feast . . .
But emptied now, like the glass of water at his side as the insomnia began to fade, peace to return, the verbal spasm within his mind spent. It would soon be gone entirely, like the notebook.
Editorial on 11/23/2015