Eternal Immortal No One's blog: "Rantings"

But, again I digress. I am trying to hold my thoughts coherent and rationalize them into some sort of non-chaotic order. But the rantings of a madman or the ravings of a complete lunatic are never in any particular order, are they? My beautiful Carrie. How often do I say that? Used to be a time when Carrie was still with us that I would tell her that at least a hundred times a day. Kind of my way of reassuring her that she would never change for me. Not in my eyes. Not my beautiful Carrie. God, I hope to be with her again someday soon. And the sooner the better in my eyes. On the morning of the accident, we got up as usual around eight AM. She was kind of excited and anxious, and a little bit randy as normal for my Carrie. Ready to greet the day as always. I wasn’t feeling too well that day, so she got out of bed and went to the computer to check our emails. I had been downloading a few programs while we slept, so I told her to go ahead and shut them down for now. She chatted in the chat room we normally go into for awhile then headed for the kitchen to make coffee. She was unusually cold that morning and it really wasn’t a very cold day for January. Now, anyone who knew Carrie knew that she always stayed hot no matter what the weather. She could be outside in her night shirt and no shoes on in the middle of winter and it wouldn’t phase her in the least. But, as we lived in an older house, it didn’t retain the heat that well. Just after she had made breakfast and we ate she wanted to go outside and gather some wood for the fireplace. So I went with her to get it because we had just run out of kerosene for the heater that morning and no way to get to the store yet. A thousand times…A thousand times she had always been careful when she was lighting the fireplace. She had just seconds before sent out emails to her father in New Jersey thanking him for bringing us up there for Christmas, and to our friend Rhonda to thank her for watching our animals for us while we were gone. A thousand times she had done it before and had always been careful. As I walked to the kitchen for more coffee, I had told her to be careful because the gas she had just put on the logs could explode on her. She had made a smart-aleck remark as usual, “If it does, then I’ll be in the hospital and I’ll be warm.” I told her not to talk like that. Why? Why did she say it? As I returned to the living room and sat down, I happened to look over and told her that she needed to move the jug away from the fireplace before she lit it. In a split second, she had already lit the match and the gas jug exploded. This is the part in which each time I think of it, I get angry with myself. I was trained for things such as this in the military, but my mind simply went blank as the explosion knocked her three feet back away from the fireplace. What to do? What on God’s green earth do I do? Immediately I told her to lie down and roll. Isn’t that what they say to do; to stop, drop, and roll? It wasn’t working. Water. I’ll get water. As I ran to the kitchen to get water I heard her screams and saw her trying to crawl from the living room to the kitchen to follow me. She must have thought that I was abandoning her. When she got to the kitchen, I was trying to put out the fire that had now almost entirely consumed her. She lay down on the floor and it seemed as if she had just given up, screaming for me to help her and how bad it hurt her. I could not in my wildest dreams imagine what my princess went through that day. As I finally got the flames extinguished on my Carrie, I asked if she could stand. “Yes” she said. That’s a good sign isn’t it? I got her to the back porch and told her to wait there. I had to go back in and get my cell phone to call 911. As I returned to the living room I poured water on a suitcase that had caught fire from sitting too close. I grabbed my cell phone and headed back outside. By the time I got outside (no more than 30 seconds) she was already at the neighbor’s house screaming for someone to help her. I knew that shock had already set in and she was telling me that she was still cold. Her jogging pants that she had on were completely burned off of her; the only thing remaining was the elastic bands around the waist and ankles. I ran back to the house to get a blanket for her. God, how the nightmares still plague me. Her standing there wrapped in the blanket and huge pieces of skin hanging from her face and hands as if someone had cast her in wax and had started to melt her. But I guess it is true that you get what you ask for in life. I begged the Almighty God that day to give me the nightmares and not to let her remember them. I still wake in the night in a cold sweat remembering my beautiful Carrie that way.

I have seen Death face to face. I told you earlier he is no stranger to me. Some say what I have is a “gift”. Others call it a power, or a curse. Call it what you will, and scoff at me if you dare, but I do see him. I see things that other humans do not see, or care not to see. I hear things that others only dismiss as the humming of a bug or insect. I always have. Does this also qualify me as mad or crazy? Because I see and hear things that others do not. I guess even I myself would deem someone nuts who was talking to something that I could not see. But, that’s our society’s way of thinking today. “Lock them up in the psycho ward and throw away the keys.” That’s what we would say….Imbeciles. As Jesus Christ himself once said from the cross as He was being crucified, “Father, they know not what they do.” No truer words were ever spoken in all of history. Humans are afraid of what they do not understand. Then they try to either destroy it or lock it away to try and protect the others of “their kind.” What exactly is “their kind?” The governments set the standards. And if you do not meet the standards, then you will be locked up or destroyed. But then, aren’t those two one in the same? Ah, my beautiful Carrie. I cannot stop thinking of her. Day and night she plays upon my mind. I still love her even more today than when I first met her. She is still more perfect to me than any woman in the world. More than all the women in the world. And would I ransom my soul for hers just to hold her once more? You bet your sweet ass I would. To look into those eyes again. To feel the warmth of her smile and her touch. I would, if I had them, ransom a thousand souls for just one more minute with my sweet princess. My kingdom! My kingdom for a thousand souls… I put this to paper from my heart, but I do not know why. No publisher would ever print such a story filled with nothing but the love I have for my Carrie, and the hatred that I have for those who drove her to what she did. I am not even so sure that I want it read by anyone. I am just compelled to write it down. But then again, for the whole world to read and know of the passion, the compassion, and the loathing we both shared for those chosen few. To let those few know that we did know. If only it were in me to commit such a heinous crime, I would most certainly enjoy cutting a swathe through the very center of those I hated most. To chop them down one by one in Carrie’s name. But then, they are already dead to me. Doesn’t the Bible preach of the power of the tongue and of ones thoughts? To think it in your heart is to have already committed it in His eyes. And I must have committed it time and time again over the past months since my Carrie left me. Oh how sweet the vengeance.

Ah, my beautiful Carrie. I cannot stop thinking of her. Day and night she plays upon my mind. I still love her even more today than when I first met her. She is still more perfect to me than any woman in the world. More than all the women in the world. And would I ransom my soul for hers just to hold her once more? You bet your sweet ass I would. To look into those eyes again. To feel the warmth of her smile and her touch. I would, if I had them, ransom a thousand souls for just one more minute with my sweet princess. My kingdom! My kingdom for a thousand souls… I put this to paper from my heart, but I do not know why. No publisher would ever print such a story filled with nothing but the love I have for my Carrie, and the hatred that I have for those who drove her to what she did. I am not even so sure that I want it read by anyone. I am just compelled to write it down. But then again, for the whole world to read and know of the passion, the compassion, and the loathing we both shared for those chosen few. To let those few know that we did know. If only it were in me to commit such a heinous crime, I would most certainly enjoy cutting a swathe through the very center of those I hated most. To chop them down one by one in Carrie’s name. But then, they are already dead to me. Doesn’t the Bible preach of the power of the tongue and of ones thoughts? To think it in your heart is to have already committed it in His eyes. And I must have committed it time and time again over the past months since my Carrie left me. Oh how sweet the vengeance.

Remember me? The forgotten one with the penchant to help lost souls; even though I, myself am lost. They say that that which does not kill you only makes you stronger….or makes you mad enough with a vengeance to find that which tried to kill you in the first place. Am I mad? Am I mad because I have tried so very hard to find that very thing…Death? Death is no stranger to me. He comes in the middle of the night to steal away the only ones that I have truly loved. My mother, my father, my precious, beautiful, princess Carrie. He stole them right from under my grasp. Yes, I mourned for my mother and my father. But not nearly as deeply as I mourned for my Carrie. Some say circumstances change people, sometimes down to the very core. And I am not the same man that I was six months ago. Not the same gentle, kind, loving soul who would literally give the shirt from his very back to someone in need. No. I am much different now. More callous and cautious. Carrie’s death saw to that. I have now become what American folklore refers to as a “hermit”. Living in my ruins of ashes and dust. Venturing out every now and then to see what else this old world can do to me. Perchance waiting here in the ruins for my beloved Carrie to come home to me. I still talk to her you know? Does that make me mad or crazy? To be able to talk to someone that you have loved and lost. Or are you the ones who are mad simply because you cannot see or hear her? And she answers me every time we talk. Oh, not in the normal way that you and I would converse, but on a level of the mind that most humans have forgotten is there…or have forgotten how to use it. I still hear the water running in the tub in the evenings; the way it always has been when she bathed at night. Sometimes, I still see her sitting on the sofa on the front porch afterwards painting her toe nails or talking on the cell to her mother. Maybe it’s just guilt. The guilt that it should have been me lying in that grave instead of her. Or maybe selfishness. That’s it! It’s selfishness. Selfish thoughts and questions. “Did she still love me even until the very end?” Did she blame me for what had happened, even though she and I both knew it was simply an accident?” Somehow my mind and heart need these answers. But, then I talk to her. She never even gives the singlest of clues to me. She talks of all the good times we shared. About how much fun she had at Christmas time when her father paid for us to come to New Jersey to visit. I don’t, in my heart of hearts believe that she ever blamed anyone for what had happened to her. But I do! Oh yes, I do! And each of you knows exactly who you are. The ones who defiled her in the past. The ones who made her think that she was less than perfect. The ones who only came around or talked to her when I wasn’t there and you wanted to offer her money for certain services of which you knew that she did not do. How Carrie did loathe this. To be treated only as a piece of flesh to be drooled after. My Carrie knew that I loved her for her. I loved her for her pure child-like heart. For her inner as well as outer beauty. This always gave her a radiance and beauty that even the heavenly angels themselves stood in awe of.