Home
Home is where you belong.
But what if you don’t belong anywhere?
* * * * * *
You imagine that you are a warrior.
The last line of defence against a demon hoard.
The survival of the world rests on your shoulders.
So you must fight the demons and win.
Day-in, day-out.
You bleed, you tire.
You are exhausted, you barely have the strength to lift your sword.
But you must fight.
You can’t let the demons win.
So you fight a war with no hope of winning.
No hope of end.
You are at war forever, a soldier eternal.
Sometimes play-acting can help.
After all, warrior sounds better than mental patient.
* * * * * *
Some days are bad.
Others are worse.
You count in your head.
The number of people who will actually give a shit at your funeral.
On better days, the count can be six or seven.
On the worst days the count is just one.
But you know that you have to still fight on. You must. For that count of one.
So you soldier on.
The warrior fights the demons alone, day after day.
But he prays each day, to a god that he barely believes in.
For an angel who can drive the demons away.
But those prayers go unanswered.
And the warrior loses hope.
* * * * * *
One day, the battle is more vicious than it has ever been before.
The exhaustion of the fighting leaves the warrior numb, wounded beyond repair.
He knows that he is at the end of the line.
That it’s the end.
At that very moment the sky opens up and a beam of light shines through.
God has answered his prayers.
With an angel, whose brilliance and light drives the demons away, back to the dark pits where they belong.
The warrior is saved.
* * * * * *
Finally, the warrior is home.
With the help of the angel, the warrior recovers.
His wounds are healed.
He is almost whole.
And he knows now that with an angel by his side, his demons are no longer as powerful as they were.
He hopes, he believes.
He is a fool.
* * * * * *
Demons are cunning.
They are not so easily defeated.
They are patient, they persevere.
They chip away slowly as much as they can at the warrior while avoiding the angel’s halo.
And the warrior does the rest for them.
In his frustration at not being whole, the warrior forgets how broken he used to be.
He lashes out at his only protection.
His angel.
The angel, wounded and hurt by the warrior’s uncalled for cruelty, retreats back to heaven.
And warrior is left on his own, to fight his demons once more alone.
* * * * * *
The warrior despairs.
Now he understands the true depth of darkness – the complete and total power of the demons.
He understands that he doesn’t deserve angels or their light.
That he is too broken even for angels to heal.
That demons are what he deserves.
That the eternal battle is his destiny.
The demon hoard comes rushing at him.
He drops his swords and surrenders.
* * * * * *
The demons over power the warrior.
The demons take over.
The warrior starts smiling, laughing.
The irony of it is just too much for him.
His entire life, he searched and craved for understanding, to belong, for a home.
He feels it – the anxiety, the fear, the self-loathing and misery – filling his mind, taking over his entire being.
Home is where you belong.
He is with his demons.
He is finally home.