Serial Memoir Series

I prefer to remain anonymous, not for my sake, rather I hold the sanctity of self in high regard. I can only immortalize my perceptions, more often delusions based on judgments, and a mere shade of the fullness of an outer self. The self either blossoms in long swaths of radiant time with another, rooted in the persistent discourse of how each mirror their light, or it shrivels in the shunning shadows, hidden from the honesty which threatens to rise to conflict, complication and collision. It's rare for me to allow such proximity to a heart outside my own, since my empathy can be severe and sacrificial. Besides, they should tell their own story.

One thing I should disclose from the start. I'm a time traveler, not in that romantic sense besieged by the ever-present paradox that plagues fiction, rather in the sense of re-living the past, over and over, in an unending cycle that grinds the soul between it's teeth just a tad more with each passing. At least, that's how I understood life to be until one moment, under a tree, when I decided I could go no further into the depths of hell.

The air was a dank version of chill with cloud coverage, that gave light from the intermittent lampposts on Post a certain halo of despair, even though it was midday. Combined with the musty scent born from the crashing surf in the distance, who's mist had ventured far from the disaster that tore it from the comfort of it's watery embrace in a frantic trajectory into the unknown vacuity of air, I felt the tremendous weight of years past. I slumped rather than stood against the towering pillar of living wood. It called to me.

I yearned to touch it's calloused exterior, to feel strong, stable, held, when the world around me was collapsing with nowhere else to turn. All I could muster was to lean, despite the weakness dragging my back down the tree trunk, seeking to melt slowly down into the dusty dirt beneath my military issued beige boots. I couldn't bear to feel the drag and so I gazed up into the canopy of gnarled branches and before me the image of a shaman hanging with a twisted cord around her neck became evident. Was it imagined, or did the history of this complicated place speak to my heart a truth that came in this imagery?

She fixated her gaze upon me and would not relent. Despite her wretched demise at the hands of her captors, her eyes brimmed with unlimited power. Though she was trapped in this suspension between life and death, her immutable rage electrified the vapor-heavy air. Never had I felt such a presence that demanded my attention and not my empathy, as she refused to accept her tragedy as nothing but evidence of the injustice and her continued impression decades later spoke to the fact that no matter that long distant moment, the self could be born again in the presence of a mind's eye of one facing torture of their own.

Regardless of the factual past, the message was the same. I was at the end of my rope as well. I'd failed my last exam in Mandarin. The uncertainty assaulted me as my best laid plans were coming to nought. I may have avoided destitution by joining the Army National Guard but I'd never failed at any previous academic endeavor and this failure shook my foundation of worth. I knew I was likely to be tossed aside, but had no idea what my future could hold. Would I accept my fate or fight against it? Or attempt something entirely different and unprecedented in my life to that point?