a-mad-girl-with-a-blog:

burningmuse:

Editor’s Note: Flip the switch prompt. 
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prompt-ripost:

(Prompt: The Journey Begins by *daniellieske, via writeworld. This was a really hard piece for me to write. It touches on one of my biggest fears, paired with one of the biggest unknown fears I can imagine. Here’s hoping it works…I blame Noelle.)

I never knew I was a coward until I saw a boy stare down a mountain that I couldn’t climb.

I’ve always lived within a careful fraction of a life. My errors were never great, but my glories? They didn’t exist at all. I  kissed the right girl, but didn’t dare to chase her. I never kissed the wrong girl, the thrill of thought and dream a nightmare in my worried mind. I played it safe. I never cheated. I never lied, except to myself. Every day and night, I told myself to be sensible.

I thought that this made me a man - my compromises. Then I found the door.

Fantasy. Mystery. Wonder. Horror. Through that door frame, there lay a naked promise of every flavor that I’d ever dreamed. There were madmen there and mercenaries, fire songs and sensuous sorcerers. A foreign sun shone high, heavy with the kind of faith  that burns the unclean away. Even so, the mountain stood. I loomed. It dared to be a darkness in the light. I wanted to go.

Then I found the prophecy. “To live in this light is to leave it. To come is to go. To win? Die.”

I blocked the door behind my heavy, careful gray-scale of a half-life. I never once looked back. 

 I told myself that dying would be selfish. I had a wife. A son. In an inherited house full of unimpressive things, I built a mountain of the mundane to excuse myself from living in it. I had new nightmares about brilliant colors and a darkness rising up to scorn the light.

Then I would die. Every single time, I would die. I would die beautifully. Then I’d wake afraid.

Then my son found the hidden places in our home. He found the door. He read the prophecy, tracing the old script with careful, clever little fingers, whispering its rhyme and rhythm on small, parted lips.  He looked back at the shadow of the door, where I hid and watched. I saw.

He knew. Then he tore up the paper, took a few little things from big boxes, and..

And he went through. My knees struck the attic stairs. As the light welcome him, I did nothing.

I could have stopped him. I should have stopped him. As I watched, he fought. He wept. He bled. He soared and sang. He learned secret lessons and the beauty of a flame. He cried. He fell.

He won. And yes…he died. Before my eyes, my little Anthony died smiling - a hero in the light.

A broken mountain stood as monument, pillars of light ever-shining through the rubble.

He lived his little fraction to the fullest, while I watched and wept with a painful sort of pride.

I was a coward, yes, but my compromises had brought one beautiful thing into the world.

That was enough.

oh my god. i’m fucking covered in goosebumps