Love Patterns
Page 45
There once was a man who said “Damn”
It is borne upon me that I am
An engine which moves
In predestined grooves
I’m not even a bus I’m a tram.
He started laughing and the pain came back. His thoughts drifted to his earliest vivid memory. He was three years old and he stood screaming. Older boys were throwing stones at the duck they’d found in a mud pool. He felt the soft thuds as if the rocks were striking his own body. He watched as it tried to escape, its broken wing dragging behind it, then cried as he saw its head and neck gradually sink into the mud as it died, still bombarded with stones. He’d cried in secret for days afterwards. He remembered his mother’s face, holding her hand, and her arms around him, Kenya, the war, Kathleen, and Jerie. He remembered his first few days with Jerie and it suddenly became clear, he’d been tested not by Jerie but by something inside himself. He thought of Kirsty and Alan and Claire. They also had been tested.
The pain in his chest came back, sharper this time. He remembered Kathleen as she’d died and the feeling that he’d seen other eyes looking out of hers, and Jerie’s last entry in her diary. She’d changed his and Kathleen’s patterns! But that could only mean! Why had she never told him? So that was her secret. We three were also parts of the same pattern!
Joys and tragedies mingled as his vision expanded. He saw himself as part of a great whole and there was joy at being part of this whole. An excruciating pain spreading outwards from his heart cut short his vision. He knew that he was dying but felt no regret, only gladness and a sense of expectancy. The pain increased. He clutched his chest and a mist clouded his eyes. His eyes cleared, and a figure slowly came into focus. It was Kathleen with one hand stretched out to him. She was young again with golden hair. And her eyes! it was as if a light shone out from inside her. She smiled, and her smile made his heart sing. Her head turned to look to one side and his vision expanded. Holding her other hand, was a little black girl with a huge cheeky grin.
“JERIE!” he cried, and as his spirit leapt upwards he felt the harmony of his own love song join with theirs and draw him upwards towards their welcoming arms.
And as Bill died a wave of emotion swept out from him, and for a huge area around sensitive people hesitated as a surge of joy warmed them inside, then before going again about their business, they smiled to themselves without quite knowing why.
The End