The Cruelty of Muses

There is nothing quite as awful as looking back on a period of your life - four or five years constitutes a period, I am thinking, or certainly a short one, in the very least - and cringing because there is nothing good to remember from it.

Nothing weighs on the heart so heavily as the realization that one has wasted one's time, thrown away years the way in which one might throw away old papers: to catch the breeze and drift away into dark unknowns. These papers are not missed at first. One may simply be glad to be rid of them, because they are garbage - but later, once one has considered his life and his experiences, one regrets allowing those papers to become so worthless in the first place, to the point of wanting to toss them away.

Sometimes I am walking through the city, and out from a windy place flies one such piece of trash; it scrapes across the pavement in front of me and disappears out into the street. For one fleeting moment - at least, until the litter is whipped away in the traffic - I am reminded of things that I have thrown away. Namely, time. And you, of course - you.

How many times have the seasons turned, without event, in this lonely place? How many times have I longed for the summer months, only to pass them in monotony, heavy with heat and sleepiness, trudging through my daily tasks as though I were a puppet being maneuvered by an insistent puppeteer? I neglected to care for my yard and my heart was not in the garden I planted; the birds ate all the fruit and rabbits tore up the vegetables, and I watched in a cloud of apathy as the world ticked by, moment by moment.

And, furthermore: How many books had I bought but never read? My bookcase is full of them, lined up side by side with the spines facing out, perhaps with a thin layer of dust accumulating in the crevices between them. They have never been cracked open, none of them. Yours is among my collection. I bought it as soon as I saw it on the shelves at the bookstore and rushed it home, my stomach tied in a knot, to give it its own place in my library.

That was a year ago. Many times I have reached out and touched the spine of your book, my fingers passing over the letters of your name. Your name! How can I explain my reasoning… how can I explain my inability to sit down with your book and read your words? Let me try: I was cold. I was cold and lonely and bitter, and only now can I confess to this. We spoke of being authors, of collaborating someday, of creating things together. What have I done during these years, while you have been away, writing and loving and living?

I heard you were in town again, returning to visit your parents and your childhood home. In the wake of your accomplishment - a novel, published - you could do these things that you may have been neglecting previously. I do not believe you ever lost contact; you seem, and always have seemed, to be the type of person who would write, in the very least. In between chapters you could certainly produce a letter or two.

The thought of your mail arriving in this town, delivered by the very same mail person who delivers mine, is agonizing! You were here, in the form of envelopes addressed in your neat script, and never once did one of those turn up in my mailbox. And yet, I never sent one to you. My letters, like everything else I attempted to write over the years, were thrown away like the aforementioned trash in the street.

Still, there is room left in my heart to forgive.

Tonight. There are few people out at this hour. It is evening, and the streetlights have just come on, casting a dull amber glow over the sidewalks. The air is heavy and warm; it tastes like rain. I am wondering whether I should be bothering you, whether you are seated down to dinner with your parents, but somehow, no other time has felt right up until now.

There are no tomorrows; I cannot do this tomorrow. When each day is the same as the last, when time melds the hours together, the result is one moment, one Now. Tomorrow is a concept that exists in the mind, but nowhere else. Of course, there are yesterdays. Yesterdays are for those who look back upon things that have passed and smile with satisfaction or sigh with longing.

The lights are on in your parents' home. There is an unfamiliar car in the driveway - yes, I know the cars that are usually parked there, because I pass this place on my way to work. It must be yours. My heart leaps with mingled excitement and fear. And miraculously, I ache to write. It is as if being so close to you has inspired me; the words that came so readily to you when nothing would come to me, the muse who visited you so often but had cruelly passed me by time after time -

Time. It has done horrible things to me, or perhaps I have done horrible things to it. I have insulted Time; I wasted it, allowing the metallic grinding of the paper shredder in my office to ring out the notes of my final opus. A true symphony of destruction, deeply satisfying in moments of agony but no more productive than those bits of paper floating through the streets. You have never thrown your work away, but I have.

But I think - and yes, I am trying desperately to reassure myself, to give myself a reason to go to your door - that with your warmth, words could pour from me. You are a genius, you always have been. And finally, I feel as though I could be as well. I would never admonish myself for the wasted years again if only I could write one novel - and I may, after seeing you.

One novel. How many books had I bought, but never read?

The horrible burden of time crushes down upon my shoulders. I've had so much time! Your words sit upon my shelf, never read: I never opened your book and flipped through the pages, never gazed at the substance of your thoughts, never inhaled the scent that is unmistakably - undoubtedly - a brand new book, never looked to see whether they'd put your picture in the back along with a short biography, never read that biography to see if it said anything about a wife and children, never savored the very last words of your very first novel.

Time restrains me, stops me from taking those steps up to your door. The words are gone now. I am one of those people who looks back on yesterdays, yesterdays that have gone and never will be again, and sighs with longing.

I can see the darkened form of a young man in the window, his back to me, and in my shame I turn my head away. It has begun to rain and that feels appropriate. I stand here in the street, not a genius but a man left to quake with self-pity because I have done a terrible thing, have defined myself throughout the years with one reoccurring act: I have thrown away time.

How I miss those papers now!