Everything Is Finished (A Paragraph)

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning." - Louis L'Amour

There was a precipice. Stephen stood beside it and let it fill his field of vision. It was wide and bottomless bounded only by an impenetrable mist. And yet the soft sun shone on it from an early morning angle giving it a sense of calm newness and a whisper of hope. There were years enough for a lifetime behind him now. If he were to step off into the abyss, there would be those who would ascribe to him an end as appropriately timed as any and those who would move on without hesitation or wonder at the brevity of all life. Perhaps one or two would think to miss him but, truth be known, he had been leaving for most of his life and his absence would soon be an adjustment made. His connections to friends and family had always been maintained with simple civility and sparsely attended functions. No, Stephen was not one to delude himself with the thought of being indispensable. He had chosen his journey to meaning. He had pursued it with passion and, eventually, with honesty. He had experienced the attainment of his life's ambition. He understood that it was but for a moment of joy against a lifetime of missed opportunity. To this minute he had survived the stunning lack of consolation that accompanied his newly found certitude, his abiding faith. God is. He had walked to the precipice where he stood knowing there would be an end to the pain, the pain of knowing that he had wagered life for meaning only to learn that life was meaning, having been robbed of life, of meaning, by his consuming anticipation of some grand discovery. He had loved the idea of truth so completely that he had imagined no other outcome but joy to be the consequence of it. It was a fool's price paid for a common wisdom, a hollow victory. His eyes lifted to the idea of a horizon in the distance and his body moved rhythmically with the breeze undulating him ever closer and forward to submission, to his desire to be finished with everything. Quietly he heard the whisper of his daughter's voice on the wind. He sensed her shattered heart in his chest. There was confusion and anger in it, the unknowable why of his choice a cancer growing in her. To lose naturally is a consolable sadness. To willfully take is an inconsolable assault. He knew now. Everything was finished...unless he ended it. Then all, paradoxically, would not be finished. Some memories must not be made of choices. He had lived without consolation since he learned of life and what was behind him now. He had not begun anew for having mourned his losses. He could not place the burden of his failure upon his child. His weight went to his toes. His back arched sending his chest skyward. His momentum shifted away from the precipice. Stephen's eyes looked to the sky as his body moved from the edge. "I am finished", he said. "I begin."