if but stone

* In memory of the great Charles Laughton, who brought charm and tenderness to a monster with his rare form of melancholy genius * ~ on the ledge … of majestic Notre Dame he watched attentively through his one good eye - far, far below, the throng closed ranks around Esmerelda as she ran into the arms of her prince, waiting … oh, how his soul ached and shattered heart as big as the grotesque hunch on his back - how he wished them both … gone he had fought to near death to keep her safe in the ramparts, yet now he realized that she had wanted to leave all along - that he had fought for a forsaken cause … so foolish - so stupid, as stupid as he was hideous and deformed what horrid trick this, that made him want something so unattainable? why had he EVER believed she could love him? she had wanted his help - he KNEW it! and yet now ... proof of an otherwise opposite reality lay at his ugly, clubbed feet - the bells still pounding air against his chest and deaf, cauliflower ears … rain pouring from the darkening gray Parisian skies dripping off the eyes of the carved gargoyles that surrounded him as if they too were weeping for his hapless sake but they couldn't be, lifeless and cold ... "oh, to be stone like these", he mumbled his last breath escaping ... to the night mist. Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden