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Same Sex Marriage Final Analysis

"Cages" A Short Story

My father once told me that we all dig our own graves, but that sometimes we throw ourselves into them – without knowing how, or why, or what for; we merely lose our footing in this world. Most people are unable to determine the exact moment with which they let life wriggle from their clutches, allowing it to escape to the farthest corners of their minds and the deepest recess of their souls until the memory of it becomes nothing but a whisper of something familiar, something that once was real. But for those of us who do remember, we are truly the cursed of the Earth. No time served, no repentance made, no absolution sought will ever free us from the bonds that surround us or unlock the cages that we have built for ourselves. We become life's pariahs, secluded even from our own lies and deceptions about our unchangeable fates until we become entrapped in hollowed out frames of bone and sinew and flesh – nothing more than a ghostly visage of what we might have become.
I am one of the cursed.
Upon my release, I've always imagined – always known – that I would myself returning here, to the place where her life and mine collided in a torrent of flesh and blood and silence. The café hadn't aged a day in twenty-five years; I could still smell the noxious aroma of grease mixed with the scent of the bleach-soaked rag which hung from my fingers – the rag that would soon envelop her face. But it wasn't the same – she was nowhere to be seen. I'm not sure why I expected any different. Foolish of me, I know, to have thought otherwise. You can't bring back the dead; you can only stand there, letting the chilled air wash over you and relive the pain of that terrible truth, idly letting it sink into the most secretive chambers of your dark heart. No matter, though. Truth to be told, I had longed to find myself here for so many sleepless nights and unending days that I could have made this journey with my eyes sealed shut, the memories that boiled...