Constitutional of the Heart XX.

Yesterday, your late-night email surprised me at first. Then your words gnawed into reddening flesh like steel blades, piercing my beating heart. Part of my soul collapsed from this wound then fell dead. Dreams eluded me for long, and my whole being was shaken. I could sleep a little later, but the awakening was poison-bitter. I was faced with the fact that it wasn’t just a nightmare I had had.

During my constitutional, I downheartedly discovered that the colours, the lights fled from the world for me. As though I had been walking on the Moon. The city, the Danube faded to grey. Nothing pulsed, no living force zigzagged through them. I just walked like an automaton that had been wound up.

What was the weather like? I have no idea. I felt nothing. I called our mutual friend, and he comforted me this time. His words, like some kind of medicine forced between my teeth, had some effect on me because when I got home I finally began to recover from the shock of your email.

Mentally a little dazed, I phrased a response. I wrote with blood running from my wounds to give it some colour, some life. My words were generous and sincere as always. Indeed, I have always enjoyed your company and I would indeed be glad to meet you again.

You have defeated a part of my soul. It fell.

But it cannot remain dead in the dust! It shall rise with strength renewed to hope again…