"To Feel the Beating Hearts"

Ahhhh.....to feel the beating hearts once again.  To be among the living.  To see the smiles, the love and the ignorance of what lies in wait all around you.  I peer through the dark hood of my cloak and slight pang of jealousy strikes at the void within my chest.  Sometimes I feel I would like to forget, even for a day.  To be one of you and lose myself in mortality.  Just for a little while.

I stepped past the veil today for the first time in what has been a good long absence from your perspective.  I stepped into your world and found myself on the streets of London.  So much has changed in the Millennia since I have been here, to this moment I am still sitting upon the street, the large clock tower of Big Ben in the distance.  I am saddened by the lack of attention or empathy the common folk choose to show the less fortunate among you.  I have been here for the better part of the day sitting next to a kind old man and not a single pence has been dropped at his feet.  I remember a time when the poor were adored and looked upon by the people with much kinder eyes.

I stayed with him for some time observing the men and women who walked by him trying desperately to avoid eye contact, their guilt and disgust were intermingled like weeds among the flowers.  Guilt is a good thing, it tells you that you are doing wrong, you should never ignore it.  You never know when you will be the one sitting desperately relying on the kindness of a stranger.  I would desperately wish to help him but it against the cosmic order to interfere with a humans path, I am only permitted to be an ear to listen.  It can be very disheartening but it is a rule I cannot break. 

When the old beggar took his leave I was left to my own thoughts.  I sat quietly and closed my eyes and reached out with my mind, I soared as a raven high above the city listening to the thoughts of the inhabitants.  I could feel them all.  So full of life.  So many things they thought were important weighing heavily on their minds.  Occasionally I would dive closer to one or another. I look inside and see their thoughts dancing inside their minds. And I find one.  So heavy, her emotions dragging her down. Pulling at her like a weight.  I could feel the increase in her heart beat as the thoughts in her mind were like a torrent of rushing water driving her to what I could only gather may be a horrible end.  She could not even imagine the endless current pulling her.  And then I saw it.  The Styx.  She was rushing head on toward the end of her life.  I could hear her brain screaming at her to stop what she was doing but it was like no one was home, the emotions had control now and I could only watch helplessly as she produced a small blade from her pocket and found a quiet spot down an alley by a cafe playing Italian music.  I could feel the pain, the never ending rush of emotion drowning her.  I could already feel the pull of the Styx waiting for her, lurking just behind her waiting to drag her beneath the surface........