Left of Centre

He was an anachronism in that his solipsism was not borne of the egocentrism of his times. 

It was just that he was brought up to believe the world revolved around him, and that everything that existed in it was relative to his wants and needs, nothing more, nothing less.

And who would blame his family? He was beautiful. He was brilliant. He had the disposition of a saint. He was perfect. Too perfect. Which is why I made it my life's mission to make him hate himself and self annihilate.

Why do I speak of him in the past tense? Because he is no longer in my life, disappeared to God knows where. Even his family's money, rank and privilege could not make him come out of the woodwork. And now I take the blame for his disappearance.

His childhood companion, who always harboured a secret envy for his charmed life, has been tried and will now be executed for the loss of the world's most charming man from its face. An innocent, nay not so innocent, who needed to prove her worth by destroying and desecrating his beauty and goodness. At least, attempting to.

As I look back, I see now how I died a little at a time as I sought to fulfil my life's mission. How the anger, hatred, and jealousy gnawed at my soul until all that was left was an acrimonious remainder incapable of joy and love.

I will burn in hell, I know, for what I tried to do, to erase God's favourite from the face of the Earth. But perhaps it was my fate, as it was Judas Iscariot's to betray Jesus so that he could realise the prophesy of  Salvation.

Funny that I should think that now, a really funny thought for someone who always believed that we are the authors of our lives, that destiny is not determined, that our life is what we make of it. I almost died laughing at the thought.

Sad that I did not expire then. That I will have to face the firing squad, dying a traitor's death after they discovered my plot to extinguish the man who has been an offence to my sensibilities from the day I first set eyes on him all those decades ago.

It was a pity that my cell in solitary confinement did not have a mirror. I'd have loved to see my visage, if only for the last time. My requests for one have been denied. I'd have loved to see the face that once was the object of many a man's desire in my youth now distorted into one of horrendous disfigurement. The object of repulsion of anyone who sees it, as is evidenced by the attendants who try to fudge the duty of bringing me my daily rations because it meant seeing me. I even reek of rotten onions, and there is no respite from the smell. Perhaps my rotten soul is eating up my flesh too, now.

Daylight filtered through the eastern window of my cell, the only light that comes in every day. Today is the day I die. I was told I'd be given a chance to bathe and indulge my ablutions for one last time, in lieu of a last meal as I could not keep my food down anymore, and it would have meant nothing.

But they tied my arms and wrists in hemp ropes as the sun rose full on, and put a ball and chain on my left ankle  and led me to the executioner's field in the middle of the prison. I uttered a prayer but it felt like God answered in mock jest with a small thunderstorm that showed my bald spots where the rain wet my sparse hair.

I faced the firing squad before the execution. To my horror, I saw my nemesis' face in each of the thirteen drummer boys who will give the signal to fire the gun, each of the 26 men in the firing squad, the chief executioner, and the guards. Even the audience, his family members, be they male or female, sported his visage.

I swallowed in quiet horror. I was mistaken. I thought I had erased him from the face of the Earth. He never disappeared. In the battle between love and hate, love won, he did not disappear.

He did not disappear, for everyone became him.

The solipsism, after all, was real. He was love, and nothing existed but love.

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