What Sits in Front

Before the Throne

The first lines are remembered reading something like this:

Anger be now your song immortal one, 
Achilles anger, doomed and ruinous, 
That caused the Achenians loss on bitter loss
Leading many brave young men into the undergloom, 
Carrion for dogs and bird...
And the will of Zeus was done

That's kind of as far as it ever got.

Homer's tome used to be the main book that sat before the throne until marriage put an end to all the wars in the bachelor's mind. 

Thinking of Homer, today seemed to smack me in the face with a ten year anniversary of sorts. I'd been reading the wrong book...


The first heartbreak from hell came from someone I'd wisely not wanted to marry - but it still messed with me anyway... yeah, her... we bumped into each other in the supermarket yesterday. She doesn't even live anywhere close, so the event was totally unexpected. It was her who stopped and said hell-o. Otherwise, I wouldn't have noticed.

She looked confident and okay, despite the still married haircut. Women here have cruel way of letting their hair grow sensually long until they take their vows. After their trip down the aisle, the first thing that seems to happen is that their beautician puts away the scissors, reaches for a fork and goes for that scratching-post vogue look. 

It had been a little more than ten years since we'd seen each other. 

Near the end, of our long ago and almost forgotten whatever it was,

she'd finally said straight up what she wanted:

A kid. A car. And a house. 

So it didn't really matter who I thought I was or wanted to be.

I remember sitting on the riverbank with a pack of Marlboro, telling myself it's okay to start smoking when shit like this happens. 

A pack a day on and off for about a year. That's about how it went.

It was a year later when I realized I had been abstinent. The actual moment occurred over dinner, a dinner I was invited out to by four women. They'd said, "Hey, you can be an honorary lass for the night. We won't bother you. Just have dinner with us." So I obliged.

And maybe halfway through the meal, drinks, and whatever, they mentioned they were surprised that I didn't have a girl. 

I remembered out load what had happened and realized that, yeah, it's been about a year since I'd been interested in much of anything maybe due to some sort of conditioned reflex.

Then, one of the muses noticed, "Oh, you've been grieving."

I guess I had been...without even having had a clue.

Yesterday's little moment at the grocery store didn't hurt (not like before). 

Still, it fucked with me. But it's been a while.

So, that was it. A run-in with an ex-something. Triggered all kinds of memories and left me with a feeling that's been exorcised now.