DIFFERENT PATHS(Charles E.J. Moulton) The ominous click of the receiver at the other end surprised me. No, the fact that he did not even let me defend myself hurt my feelings. His years of mental abuse made it long overdue for me to retalliate. Now, I did retalliate. For the first time I fought back, shouted into the telephone for him to listen to me. I exercised my right to tell him how much he kept hurting me.
Then he hung up.
A mixture of absolute rage and a frozen soul hit me.
Dumbfounded, my shallow breath chilled my countenance. I listened to the silence. It sounded empty, just as empty as the void within me.
My hand clutched the handle. My bony fingers looked like Yoric’s. The skull of that dead jester rested calmly in the Danish Prince’s hand, just as that phone receiver now rested in my grasp. The remainder of a friendship lay dead within a silent telephone.
Sorrow bubbled within me like clotted mud at the bottom of a lake. It broke free, protruded out of my eye in form of a tear, rolled down my cheek, hoping that I would notice how hot it was.
“Hear me,” the tear said. “Hear my pain.”
I sighed. “I know. I hear you. I hear you.”
I shook my head. I bit my lip. I couldn’t believe my own lack of judgement. This man made an absolute fool of me. So, I was not allowed to do anything but follow his rules. This had to end. I picked up the receiver again and dialed his number.
As I dialed his number, my fingers shook.
The sorrow I felt transformed into rage. No, hate. I hated him.
A man that never got angry. Thin, hungry and contemplative.
He made me think of Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar.
“Such men are dangerous,” Ceasar remarked.
Yes, he spoke not about Cassius. He could’ve described my so-called friend.
Sometimes I wished for that guy to get angry.
Rage soared within me.
So abusive and so calm.
Manipulative bastard.
The guy refused to answer the phone.
“Come on, man,” I roared. “Get angry now. React. React.”
A click interrupted the steady non replying tone.
A part of me arose to a new level. Alert, I listened to the noises at the other end. There were none, just the waning wind on the other side of that empty sound. That same wind would’ve blown by my house, if the houses had not been so far apart. But over there, silence just persisted refusing any emotional contact. I paced my home, back and forth like a caged wolf, striding to the window. I hoped to find an answer inside that sun, clouded by soot and the industrial outlet of a spring shift.
The sun offered only silence.
That rage came back, sticking its sword inside my soul.
“Say something,” I whispered.
“Let’s end this friendship,” the voice on the other end replied.
I hung up.
I cried.
I prayed.
Then, I walked out and faced the sunshine.

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