Heavy Words and Unanswered Questions!

Submitted for Contest #49 in response to: Write a story about a person waiting for an answer to a question.... view prompt


(Write a story about a person waiting for an answer to a question.)

If I may,  I’d  like to share with you, as I can’t share with any others, my thoughts, my dreams, my conundrums!  

Each and every day begins the same,  it has been this way for more than a decade!   I wish way back then,  I had had the courage to jump left or right.

If my night was restful, on waking  I think….”maybe today is the answer day”.   And I smile for a moment.  

If my night was unsettled and I wake tangled in the bed covers, I know in my heart…”there are no answers!”

As I woke up this morning,  I lay stretching my body and thinking…”yes, another day!”

All days seem much the same but I should never complain as I have a good life,  a very good life compared to some friends and those who live around me.  I have enough of every needed thing, food and health , warmth and even some possible form of love.  I am aware that I should never complain, moreover, I should give thanks for all of my,  so called,  blessings!

In the shower, the thoughts about my life remain in my mind.  Those thoughts will dog me until I get busy enough with something that demands my full  attention or replace the thoughts with actual conversation with others.  

My thoughts are like lumps of lead that I drag along with me  each minute of every day.  Leaden thoughts which create the great question but forever there are no answers.  Every question should be able to be resolved, don’t you think?

I sit now with my coffee and the words come back even louder,  the question even more profound, more nagging!    Somewhere in my brain I know I must resolve this thing, this mess that is my life!   Why can’t the answer be “Defined”?   Why can’t it be “Obvious”?  A “True” and “Correct” answer?   Can the answer really be just the passive acceptance of...there really is no answer?

Over considerable time and with great effort I have sifted the words down to these three words,  they define my life but refuse to answer my eternal question.

Conundrum - confusing,  difficult or impossible to solve

Dichotomy -  a division or contrast,  being entirely different

Fulcrum - the point at which balance is achieved

Words,  whether heavy or light, are just squiggles on paper,  joined together in groups to form something we have been taught to recognize.  When words are applied to a problem,  the visual effect can often be stunning or so destructively final that it makes one weep!

Today I struggle with, as I have for years, the idea of personal freedom,  more specifically,  my personal freedom.   It would seem that personal freedom is a pretty simple concept as we all have it in some form or to some degree.  When one takes it a step further,  to making a life choice, for instance,  the concept becomes more complex.   

Freedom can be moving forward toward a new something but conversely it then is also moving away from something.   A gain and a loss!  But can you keep the good and just add new elements and experiences?

In between the very busy moments of my life,  I wrestle with my own very personal thoughts on freedom.   Yes, it is a conundrum,  there are no good answers.   

On one hand there is a deep deep craving for personal freedom, when unfulfilled , that craving creates profound sadness and depression.  

If I were to satisfy my craving, leave, go out, abandon my family, achieving personal freedom, that satisfaction would result in such fear, bordering on terror that my mind just shuts down.   

Someone has always cared for me, I have allowed decisions to be made about my life that were safe for me, security, but many times not my choice,  rarely my choice and so the fear!   Could I even make a good decision?  How many foolish or stupid errors before my happiness turned to defeat?  Yes,  real fear!

It is at this point that balance is achieved.   Profound sadness on one hand,  intense fear on the other,  and in the middle,  the fulcrum, the passive acceptance of abandoning freedom for some semblance of peace, not happiness, never happiness, but at least peace with no fear!

For the past few years, it is at this point where I have stopped!  I have settled on a very unsatisfactory point where  peace is achieved but at what cost?  I have settled for the known as opposed to advancing into the unknown,  is it true peace?  

You know in your mind that each passing year your resolve to be strong and independent fades.  Nagging thoughts of…”You will never have the courage to do this thing” haunt your every waking hour!  Will your inner child forever resent you for the road not taken?   Will the craving ever stop?  


As I age, another factor comes into play.  There is little or no need for me to even exist now!  My job is truly done.  But is there enough of me, the person, left to continue with this struggle?  The struggle that ties my mind into knots.  That erodes my feelings of any kind of worth.  How can I have become so useless that I cannot decide?

If I go, I will not be missed!

If I stay, I will not be noticed!

This realization is so very sobering!   Years and days and hours of thought,  such misery of indecision and for what?  It feels like a void, a moot point and yet...yes you guessed it,  the questions remain and the answers nonexistent!


This morning I try to recognize that I still have choices.   I must kill, murder or anniolate one or the other…..the craving or the fear!

More and more questions...how do you murder craving?   How do you alleviate fear?

A million thoughts later and over many cups of coffee, the questions remain, the damn questions and the eternal missing answers.

I leave the questions dangling there,  as they are in fact,  always dangling there!  My forever questions.  

The answers remain as elusive as ever.  

But each morning, as I did this morning, each morning I wait.   I wait for the answer!


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James Offenha
23:27 Jul 15, 2020

I liked the story. I reminded me of Philip Roth’s “The Breast”. However, it IS very philosophical. What’s at stake for the character if he doesn’t find the answer to his questions? What can create suspense in this story?


P. Jean
23:36 Jul 15, 2020

Thanks for reading and commenting....to answer your question...what is at stake is if the unhappiness intensifies, suicide. I suspect the character has already considered it a few times. OR, grabbing the last available thread of courage and rushing forward to an unknown fate filled with mistakes and errors, some of which could also be fatal. It was only a prompt but IMHO there was no decent ending perhaps!


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Grace M'mbone
15:06 Jul 06, 2020

The conclusion was brilliant. The entire story also was amazing. Keep it up.


P. Jean
15:12 Jul 06, 2020

Thank you so much! A person almost has to get into the skin of the character to present the feelings correctly!


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Corey Melin
03:34 Jul 05, 2020

Well done story. Waiting for answers on life's problems. Will it ever be answered?


P. Jean
03:46 Jul 05, 2020

I pray to the answer Gods every night! Thank you for commenting


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