Sharply. Acutely. No… keenley. In the months since his mother’s abrupt death, he’d felt his age more keenly than ever before. The cruel insight that often accompanies such loss had made him suddenly aware of his prospects as a man balanced pointedly atop his middle age and staring down a murky path. His health would only decline from here forward and, having no children of his own, it was unlikely any known acquaintance would attend to his needs or see him off with dignity at the end of his life.
That bold and beneficent halo that had radiated from his skull since childhood — consecrating and protecting him, lighting his way — had now faded, and so the cruelties of the world stabbed into his brain with thorny malice. The past bellowed in his ear, loudly and unrestrained: How little he had made of his abundant opportunities; all he’d taken for granted and exhausted; all that he had surrendered and never reclaimed. Things would not — his fine mind assured him — get any easier, unless… he surrendered. Unless he accepted the available options. Unless he compromised.
He had been gifted with a venomous clarity, and when one has clarity, one has no choice.
– from Attempted Birdhouse by Totie Gabor
