Disclaimer: The characters belong to Annie Proulx. Some of the words, and most of the inspiration for this, belong to Carbon Leaf, from their song by the same title.
Torn to Tattered
It was a long time ago. Past his window, in the distance, is a steady tree line, shimmering in the sunset colors of the evening. The window pane burns to blur, to haze and color of glass, and Ennis isn't looking at it, or through it, but living past it.
He wishes he had the strength to go back there, to walk the paths they had been on. And maybe he'd have some strength, too, to bridge the line between two points ruptured in time, separated by the great bulk of life.
Jack'd chosen to live like nothing else mattered. But he'd been torn-- torn to tattered.
And somewhere in the hazy dark night, Ennis can feel his anger rising up, a familiar feeling from after his parents died. Sometimes he needed to wail on Jack for going and getting himself killed. But now, living in the hazy treeline of the past, he realizes he doesn't want Jack's remorse. Jack'd lived his life like nothing else mattered, just Ennis. Who could ask for an apology?
But it sure was a long walk on his own.
The smallest things make him feel like it was when they could steal the magic of the real moments in the dusk. He would drive the long highway, revisit. He would drop off into dreaming nights, remember. He would feel a crumbling need of warmth, reunion. And some evening in the summer he'd once made a fire behind his trailer, re-ember. He'd filled the air with the white smell of burning leaves.
It gave him the fuel he needed to walk on.
And at those times, he could see Jack. Jack walks the path like he's a child: full of hope, but his head down, unseeing the dangers that surround him. He only has one eye to see; the other's closed, too scared to peek. He needs to live in that blissful place where this can exist, because the silence that impales without it can leave him shattered. Now he's torn, torn to tattered.
But it sure was a long walk on his own.
The soft evening light slips from the treeline to the golden grass, and Ennis thinks he can hear a harmonica in the whistle through the distant pines. Through the line of the trees he dreams the only good remembering. He can't help but think of Jack. Was it ever so bad, my friend? What was ever so bad, my friend? Maybe Jack thinks of him, too.
He wishes he'd have the strength to go back there, to walk the paths they should be on. The sun sets now, and Jack was just a dream. Maybe somewhere the thing between them still matters. To Ennis, Jack always matters. But in the here and now is just Ennis, Ennis torn to tattered.