Introduction: The Tin Man’s Rant is one of my earliest completed projects. I had thought to submit it to a magazine for publication, but never found a good home for the piece. I hope you will enjoy it. Image courtesy of http://www.deisign.com/2012
There was a heaviness in my heart that I cannot begin to explain. A throbbing that was boiling, blistering my heart and shooting down, deep into my gut. I wished time and again that there was a way to end this incinerating pain. Not to have any feelings at all, I was certain, would have to be better than this. I needed some way to drown the endless humming and thrumming of my wounded nerves. I knew that there had to be a cure for the unrequited want that poisoned my every waking moment and punctuated my peaceless dreams at night. Oh what a want! I longed for so very much, but ironically there was not a single thing to satisfy my longing. My heart was a never ceasing chasm where I always was grasping for something more, but never actually handling anything. No matter my level of success, no matter what I achieved, I never was satisfied with it. It all seemed so important until it was achieved, and then it was an insignificant detail of the past, a reminder of my lowly state.
For someone so unsatisfied, to feel so heavy seems misguided, misjudged. It seems the emptiness of my soul should have been reflected in the weight of my pain, but instead I was full up with aching soreness. So heavy was my heart, that it would drag the whole of me down with it. I would sink into an abyss of black and red and ugliness. I could feel no joy for those I love, I could feel no bliss for those my dears. All I had, and all I saw was pain, and hurt, and fear.
I took my tender heart to a professional, who said he’d fix it good. He worked his magic on my heart, said he’d turn my hurt into a pleasure so very full and bright. He’d stoke the fires in my heart and they would kindle all the joy and love a man could hope to have. He worked his spell upon my pain, and soon I felt the change. In my heart I knew I wanted still, but it seemed clear at last that love was in my path.
I strode away from his small agency, my love to track and trace. I had a vision in my head of a singular and lovely face. She looked at me from across the void, and I knew she was my only hope. She would be the one to bring my heart to the sanctum of ecstasy, the fields of Elysium. She would be the answer to my heart’s unrelenting want. I felt in my gut for the very first time a lightness bounding free. I couldn’t explain the emotions I felt that completely overtook me. My aching nerves at last would feel a liberation from sorrow and hurt.
I set my feet out on the world. There was no time to waste. My journey now, it must begin with nothing else but haste. My path could not be deceived. I searched the world in wonderment at all I got to see. There were buildings as tall as the sky it seemed, and trees older than the dirt they cleaved. There were people of every size, shape, and color, but not one that matched my dream. My heart’s light dance took a fleeting dive toward despair, but I remembered her face and the fall of her hair and I knew that my hope was not spent.
Once again I took to the world, my search at the helm of my thoughts, my heart was the compass that would lead me, I knew, to my love consistently and relentlessly on my mind. Her beauty, I knew, was the pinnacle of grace, her heart was a match without qualm. I knew all this without reason or doubt, for my heart was an expert after all. It led me around on a merry old chase, searching high and low, far and wide. Through all the world, I began to despair, there was none as magnificent as she. There were ladies with hair finer than silk, ladies with bosoms quite ample, ladies whose bodies would tempt the most devout, ladies whose face could practice with ease the most eloquent and enticing of pouts. I stopped not for one, for they were not my love. I moved always further, no stopping. Never a thought for what I might be missing, only the time for my ceaseless pursuit.
She became to me a white doe in the forest, a unicorn, a legend so fair. I dared not to find her, I dared not forget her, I searched on in delightful agony. She occupied all of my moments of wake, and she filled up my time when I dreamed. She’d taken the place of that God awful pain, she’d given me joy, hope, and peace. I felt and I knew that my steadfast pursuit would be rewarded with love glowing strong in the night and a peace flowing bright in the day.
It’s funny how wrong that a man really can be, how enamored he’ll let himself get. Even now, thinking back on that day I am filled with a bile so wretched and keen. I can feel still today, all the hope in my heart clawing all at once to be free. Seeking I am sure, a more suitable host, for its silly, tainted, horrible, ghost of a chance that somewhere there is happiness still.
I’d found now at last the queen of my heart, the occupant of my love’s only throne. The world, it stood still as I crested that hill and feasted my eyes on her form. Truly, she was just as lovely as my mind had allowed me to dream: so creamy her skin, so silken her hair, and her body was as ethereal as could be. So still was my heart in my chest on that day, so tense did my muscles become. I wanted to jump, and to scream, and to leap for at last my heart had found its way home to my love, and my mind could find ease in her presence. But something was wrong, I could feel it somehow. There was weeping somewhere in the crowd. I thought to myself, oh I have known how they feel, but today I’m as high as the clouds. Then I saw with a start that my love was not sitting still, but unmoving and dead as can be.
I fell to the earth that I’d traveled so truly, my faith guiding me here just a moment too late. My love just a step too far gone. My heart once again was drowning and crooning, a tormented song of my melancholy and a tortured testament to my anguish.
I returned now posthaste to the doctor, that pretender, that con artist, that fake, that thief, that swindler of love’s only light. I brought to his door my temper, and fuming, I laid his offenses before him. I told him the wrong that he’d done to me, the hurt I endured was much more, more consuming. I told him it was his duty to fix this straightaway, and if he did not I surely would sue him. He laid me again on his table of lies, he pulled out his instruments of pain and destruction. He cut open my chest and he reached down inside and pulled out my hurt, and my pain, and my longing. It beat there a moment in his treacherous grasp. The relief that I felt in my soul was immediate; the liberation endured was complete. I was free now at last of these horrid emotions, but alas I saw then the truth of it all, I was free too it would seem of my life. For you see it is a fact and the nature of man, humans simply cannot live without the pain and the confusion, so I died all alone in a fright.
Thank you for your time, and more importantly: thank you for reading The Tin Man’s Rant. If you enjoyed it, and want to encourage others to read it, please take a moment to leave a review of this story in the comments. Your honest feedback is all I ask, negative or positive! Also, feel free to share with friends you think may also enjoy this story, or any of my work.
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