Prompt #64

The wind blows in my face, and gently breaks my resolve to stay in the fresh air.  Something gets caught in my hair, and I run my fingers through the strands to pluck it out.  A thorn.  The wind took it from its home and threw it at me, from where?  I retrace the steps of the wind to find out.

The tear-stained face of a child.  Most of the reasons that moves a child to cry are reasons that do not last long.  A scraped knee, a sudden burst of anger or sadness.  But not these tears.  These tears were not born from a childish passion or a foolish fancy.  These tears were birthed on the day the father walked out, and they will never stop falling.

The source of the thorn can’t be far now.  A winding dirt road will lead me to its mother.  The mother of a thorn must be bitter, bitter indeed.

The day he left, his wife fainted in surprise and shock.  How could she not know that he was spending his nights with another?  It was a holiday – ruined forever for her and her children.  He asked her to pretend for his sake, for the sake of the day. She refused, how could he think she wouldn’t?

The road is riddled with holes on my way to this thorn bush.  I stumble, and the winding road does not forgive my misstep.  My knees are bloodied, but I cannot stop.  My need to find the mother of the thorn lifts me gently from my knees, drives me, pushes me on.

He walked out, but it didn’t stop there.  Oh for the simplicity of a father who could not be found!  But no, torturous agony was there lot.  Miserable creature that he had become, his greatest pleasure was to make his own children suffer.  If their suffering meant his old wife’s suffering, then his goal was achieved.  Who can lose that much of their soul?  How can a heart forget?

My heart beats faster as I near a bend in the road, and smell that sharp and metallic smell.  Is it the thorn bush I'm looking for?  Or is it the blood oozing from my knees?

He is descending into the abyss every day, and every day I’ll continue to struggle with forgiveness.  His children will never be the same for it, and neither will his old wife.  Perhaps she will find love again – love as it should have been in the first place.  Or perhaps she will stay as she is – hoping for someone and attempting to please men, setting a poor standard for her children to live up to.  

The thorn bush is not a bush – it’s a tree.  The thorns are ready to release and find new homes, nestled in the flesh of others.  Burying themselves deep in the warm blood that gives life and the prospect of hope.  Birthing pain, and infection, and disease.  Why is this their lot, why do they perform this task?  I suppose it is because they are thorns.