I can give no payment...

Note: This is deeper than I usually post on this blog... read into it as you will...

My heart was opened and life as emotion as blood flowed from it.

It never hit the ground.

Before any life was lost the wound was covered and sealed.

Life soaked rags were the mind and heart of another as they listened to the emotion burst from me.

The blood was as much mine as theirs as my pain burned from the wound.

It was their hands and their heart that were burned;

Theirs and mine, though the wounds were mine alone.

I woke up lying down.

I feel dead, or what I think dead should feel like.

On an elbow I see them hobbling away; alive but scathed.

As they fade away I climb to my feet;

Jaded.

Broken.

But Alive.

Clearly my unknown saviour took my pain unto themselves.

Clearly they were bathed in the fury of my blood, and emotion, and life.

Clearly the wounds they take with them are mine.

I have given no thanks.

I have given no payment.

I was in ruin. I was broken, and lost, and hurt, and alone, and ready to lay down into that final rest.

Ready, but not so.

As I let life flow from my wounds I was saved.

The cost was dear and full, but I did not pay it.

My scar’s grown thick, and my heart’s grown strong.

I think still of my saviour, limping into my memory, and of the debt unpaid.

I think of it often and feel guilt at the cost.

My saviour is gone.

The debt I cannot pay.

As I walk through the blackness I hear a startling sound.

It is not a cry or a wail, but the sound of life bleeding away.

I sit down beside the quivering figure and see life as emotion as blood spilling to the ground.

I reach out to catch the blood, feeling the emotion burn my hands.

I listen hard, and through the fire and the pain I stop the escape of life.

My friend in need has fallen; lowered to the ground as I free my hands.

My friend is Jaded.

Broken.

But Alive.

I stand in the slow as I feel pain that’s not mine.

I think back to my saviour as I take my steps away.

I think of the debt I’ve not paid.

Debt?

There is no debt.

What had to be done is done; the life could not be wasted.

Not while I had life.

The payment is the life saved.

My legs groan as I hobble away.

I can feel my friend behind me.

My friend will not catch me – too much life is gone.

It will not matter; very soon my friend will be stronger than ever...

And me?

I’ll recover.

As I fade into the distance my friend makes it to an elbow.

I look back once, and then step into the distance.

I can almost hear behind me in a tortured but living voice:

“I can give no payment...”