The Lion Sleeps Tonight
A truck backfires, for a moment drowning out the rumble of distant traffic. The grass is soft and moist, cold yet yielding; the smell of the dew far outpaced by the smells of the city; dirt, sweat, rotting food, rotting flesh. Steam rises from the sewer grates cascading across the landscape, obscuring the buildings a short distance from where the man lays motionless.
He is not asleep, nor is he truly a man. Of course, the definition of man is lost on him, almost as much as it is on us. The rites of passage in his world are more elusive in definition and clarity, but more readily apparent in their effect on someone. He is a teenager, a lone lost teenager under a bench.
It occurs to him briefly the chief reason for the bench, indeed for the park itself. He ever so gently fantasizes, just for mere moments about the family sitting down at the bench, enjoying the warm summer sun, combined with a beautiful spread of food fit for a king and his royal family. His stomach rumbles, and this forces him into action, even if it is just to roll over and suffocate these thoughts.
He’s not sure if his fantasy is anywhere near reality. He thinks back to his family outings, rare as they were. They always seemed to center around a bar. Ontario place for the air show, at a bar. Booze infested family dinners. His memories do not fill him with light.
He groans softly, realising his thoughts betray him, make him soft and weak and vulnerable. This will never do, not now, not later, not ever. He resolves then and there to be unquestioningly strong, unfailingly cold. Just like the morning grass.
The sun is threatening to bring its warm face out and mock the man-child. It seems lately like all the sun does is mock and cajole, promise light and warmth, but only bring exposure and boredom. All day, what does he have to do but wander and ponder? He’ll think about what led him to this spot, what made him the way he is, but in the end all he will find is silence, because the answer is so obvious that he should not even bother with the question. He did this. He made it. But still he looks for a place to lay the blame, some way to alleviate his anger by focusing the relentless rage.
He knows the rage will betray him as all his other emotions will. People use this to their advantage. Twisting, manipulating, cajoling him into action he previously would never have considered. But really, what is he now but a clean slate? He is but a newly formed machine of cold unfeeling malevolence for those around him.
He tries to fight this, but knows he will lose. It is not mere abandonment he feels. Nor is it hopelessness. It is calm resolution; an acceptance of fate if you will.
The anger rises, tasting like bile in his throat, but of course it is the best thing he has tasted in three days, so he welcomes it. He wants to scream out. LOOK AT ME NOW! You say you care, you say you love me, but look at me now. Look at where I am, and what I am doing and tell me this is love, tough or otherwise.
This makes him ponder love. Has he ever really felt it? He has been told I love you, but like the ghosts of a thousand dreams, all those that say love with their lips, and even with their eyes, walk away. Is that love?
He knows in the back of his mind and in the front of it when the sun crawls to its height and brings out all the happy souls for play, that things will get better. They will change as all things must. There is one small problem that he sees. It will get bad again. Then better. Then bad. The lesson his father imparted doesn’t leave him, and maybe he should be thankful for that at least. Life is a series of waves, sometimes you are cresting, riding high and feeling no pain; and sometimes you are in the trough, surrounded on all sides by your anguish and loneliness, engulfed by your sadness, in constant fear of the devastation of the undertow. This he now knows to be true.
Things will get better, and he will forget the lesson he learned that night. When he lets the emotions run and lets people in, he will feel pain because he knows no other way, knows no other form of living than this. As luck will have it though, there will be others to teach him this lesson over and over again. They will be unwavering in their support of the trough theory.
There is one final lesson the street will teach him that night, the lesson that will be his downfall for all eternity. Loneliness is a killer. Being alone in a city of millions makes a hard man crumble, and let us not forget, this is really not a man we are talking about. Loneliness will force him out from under the bench. Loneliness will introduce him to all sorts of wonders and he will ride high standing on top of the crest, his feet barely brushing the surface of the water, a smile on his face that no feeling person could resist. But loneliness will cause him to stop thinking and start feeling, and that he cannot allow, even though he will. The problem for him is not the people he chooses, it is in fact the people that choose him; that break their own waves across his body; that will search to use him to climb out of their trough, to avoid their loneliness, to embrace their darker passions.
You and I will come to doubt that he will need to be taught these lessons many more times before they make him or break him. But there is always once more. There is always that one last time to dream, to hope, to persist and to reach for the stars, because in the dead of night, all alone in a city of millions, the stars are your friends, and they are all just people who he has yet to meet, and a few of them will be the bright beacons in life that they are in the sky. This too he knows is true.
He rolls over, the growl of his stomach can be heard from 20 feet away, and he sleeps. Tonight he will sleep, for one day, sleep will betray him too, but that day is yet to come, those memories are the future.
The boy who is not a man, the man who is only a boy sleeps.