Dust Beneath Your Feet

I saw a man take something that could not be returned, and I feel something I never expected. I hurt for him. It was if he had been deceived. Did he hear poisonous whispers of a comforter, guiding his hand, only to recede forever when the act was done? Were his eyes only opened in time to see the last door swing shut? He was not the kind of man I would have imagined. Not without heart, not enraged. Not like they would have you believe. No, he was as a child, so horrified that all he could think to do in the face of such absolute futility was to find someone to show him how to erase the act. But how cruel is the passage of time. How horrifying the dismay to know it can never be undone. To never have thought yourself able, but then in the darkness of that day, to look down and see guilt staining your hands. Guilt that destroys not only the life you stole, but yours as well. One act that makes all the good you ever did as if it were nothing at all. Dust beneath your feet.

Ian