I Shit Upon The Romantic Notion of Exile

Princes, Prophets and young sisters of older bitches... How many times have we heard the tired old stories; life changing banishments into the wilds... Struggles with the unfamiliar as character grows; wisdom flourishes, petty obsession for revenge transform into righteous plans, the honorable pursuit of justice! The return, the triumph of goodlyness over badlyness. The people are unchained, rose peddles tossed on the dirty old streets as the vanquished ones parade freedom down, the dirty, dirty old streets...

Then there is the exile of our hero, the exile of a simple, plain old fool. Exiled behind imaginary lines that cross over some of the most beautiful countryside between two of the greatest countries in the history of mankind. Two countries designed with openness in mind... divided by perhaps, even just the remnants of a simple 200 plus year old lingering love & hate for Queen and Country. Meanwhile well over 17 rerun episode of Seinfeld run simultaneously daily on either side of the imaginary line...

Exiled not only geographically, but thrust seven years into his questionable past. Perhaps meant to find the answer to unanswered questions; Reflections on the choices and paths taken... Reflections; his face, face down reflected in the oily pool of muddy water after another night of stumbling and falling while sinking deeper and deeper into this childishly selfish moan of his. Oh, sure there are moments of self realization; the realization that he is nothing but a poor planning looser. Oh, sure there is inspiration; psychotically obsessive dreams of plans and schemes that one after another prove themselves to be nothing more than blind hope that kills the hours as he runs them through the loop in his mind over and over and over again. The taste in his mouth becomes the putrefied flavours of all the good things spinning out of control into conspiracies that keep him locked in the chains formed by the simple fact that he hasn't come up with one frikin clue of how to work himself out of this particular soaking wet brown paper bag of a serious problem.

You do NOT find yourself when you crash to the bottom of the pit of no hope; what you find is an ever diminishing group of hands reaching down to help lift you out of the pit prior to this crash. If you miss that last hand, you might as well... Well get used to a long, steady continuous fall... praying for the crash that will finally splatter that last bit of hope that has become nothing more than a big fierce set of dogs jaws placed firmly and with ever increasing pressure over your entire head, body and soul... the hand.

As our hero's luck would have it, that last hand in this particular fall was the hand that was always held out there in front of him... a steady, if sometimes desperate hand, an always loving hand.. Then another hand; and another... a The Firm but tenuous grip; an abruptly frightening jolt as the descent is slowed... Stopped... The hand tosses the blue rope, a desperate reach, a tug, pulling as hard as one can after the complete exhaustion of unbearable separation. A hug; A hug lights a flame that roars into the inferno that burns this whole silly story into ashes. Only the inflammable nuggets remain in the dust; some glorious; others so heinous, they'll hold them around if only to remind them of the places they will never return to...

Fearsome quarrels over Anti pasta... Reconciliations over a tiny one inch by two inch picture of paradise on their way to walk the only bridge in town. Almost conjugal visits that keep one alive between moments of absolute obsessive boredom. Visits that each carry joy and a piece of the puzzle they'll put together once back, back home. Visits that finally allow them to define that one final and crazy mission...

No rose peddles lay before them; the streets are however, wonderfully dirty. I shit on the romantic notions though... As it turns out, exile although indeed a bitch; and, although our heroes may still be in exile; they never really were all that far from home, after all.

And that's all you will ever hear about that!