So long, Parthenon

The longevity of time. Yes, time. It sounds absurd when you think about it, and it should, as the phrase coins together a quality with its abstract. It brings into picture an upheaval of thoughts as you know them, because it puts a mirror in front of those very thoughts. It’s like beating an inventor with his own machine, killing a writer with his own words, and questioning a god with his own powers.

Time, and the amount of it, if seen individually seems to be copiously scarce, or just not enough. Things move an inch a day and by the weekend they’re lost. Or some presences are always around which never go by, even in years. Within that broken continuity, and around the chosen rupture, if certain revitalisations can occur, then you’re in for a ride.

Because things change, with various levels of longevity. And that much anyone with a piece of life can understand - from the immobile tree to the wavering human. And within humans, even the least perceptive of all can percept change and act accordingly.

Trouble then, reeks from the minds of people who know a lot. Who’ve been blessed with Uriel’s insights on patterns, who can link the sudden losses of the past to the epiphanies and revitalisations of the future. Those who live with presences - not necessarily with pieces of life but remnants of them, or more, or less - and drop them only to have them on their backs the moment they have a dilemma understand what it means to see beyond. And even if you try to show the beyond to people; some, or pitifully, most, can painfully see nothing beyond your finger.

Blessed with the curse of this knowledge, one is very astutely linked with a state of desolation. Desolation never comes in the way you think it will, or in the form you think it will. It’ll come in the riches of people, or in the riches of gold, or in the riches of adulation. It’ll come in the form of absent eyes, plugged ears and stuffed minds; or in the form of true poverty; or with a back full of holes. But desolation is for the one who knows, for one who knows is the one who forgoes. In whatever way possible.

Nevertheless, my roof is away, taken from what was once supposed to be a monument for the ages. It stands with a perimeter and pillars, which is a sinkhole of a prison. Oh, what it was. Oh, what it could be. Oh, what it would be if the roof was there. Sometimes the grasp varies - you think your pillars have collapsed and thus you’ve been crushed; but sometimes it’s the roof that’s off and the pillars stand there useless, with nothing to lift up. Both are desolation, and while one is claustrophobic, the other is the base of voluntary imprisonment.

I see no beauty. I do what I do, and yet people find it beautiful. They say it is actually. But they’re wrong. I know this. I built it. I was inside it. Still am.

But someday I will step out. And walk far far away, away from the sunset. And if I turn, maybe I’ll see what my Parthenon is now, and why the setting sun makes it look beautiful. And may I have the courage to say then,

“So long, Parthenon.”