3

When one looks retrospectively on the fall of an age characterized by greatness, one cannot help but attempt to investigate when and where the threads began to unravel. When is the beginning of the gradual decay of greatness? Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Christians all toppled beneath their own grandeur. So too did our love. And thus, I make the mistake that I as a novice enjoy making most. As obsession compelled me to weave this tapestry, obsession compels me to inspect these threads torn asunder seeking the origins of those pulls that made the ultimate unraveling inevitable.

We conquered each other's hearts and built an empire around ourselves. He was an island of novelty and charm in which I was free to become an explorer of another. I mapped out and memorized his topography, knowing the exact degree of elevation of each mountain and the depression of each valley. I splashed within the rivers and dove into the caves. Enamored with this world I could call my own, I made it my Eden. No fruit was sweeter nor more intoxicating than from those trees and I refused to seek the knowledge of any other. But time passed and the vegetation withered, refusing to produce anymore. It was either this or I had exhausted my resources after asking too much of that land that already gave all it had. I still know it by heart though I raised my anchor some time ago. It is always with me when my eyes are closed.

It is my own theory that his experience was instigated by a different motive. Discovery was accidental yet intriguing for what he found was a dilapidated shore, uninviting, perhaps even dangerous, and in need of some repair. Like many men who follow Christ, he measured his life through martyrdom; haunted by an impulse to sacrifice in order so that he might save. Driven by this suicidal need to rescue, salvage and renew, he disembarked onto my shores so that I might not be lost forever. He was the light of my life. He was my religion. However, for reasons still unknown to me, he left my planes unexplored and whittled away his time on my shores alone, neglecting the world he had once claimed as his own. I renounced my faith for my god had forsaken me. Now I am caught in a gale of loneliness, lost on the open sea.