It wasn't the first night Fredrick had worn away the hours in deep study of his myriad tomes. His eyes had grown dry and irritated at the abuse and his throat was parched beyond the powers of the fine red wine at his side. The tears flowed smoothly of their own accord as he read, seeking answers that never came. Their touch soothed his sore sockets and released a bit of the pain he held as they coursed down his cheeks. He let them continue down past his collar and be reabsorbed by his chest hair. Finally succumbing to the need for sleep, he sighed long and hard as he placed his marker and set his book aside.
Fredrick lifted the simple crystal goblet from the table and, staring into it through the candlelight, he watched the blood-red shadows dance across his wedding band. Marie had been dead three years now, and every moment since had been spent in quiet solitude. She had been buried with her ring. His eyes hadn't left that slender gold ribbon even as they eased her body into the cold earth of that November morning. Those were his last memories of her, not of here flashing eyes or bright smile that reminded him that she was too lovely to be the bride of such a humble man as he. He would come home from his downtown office after a day that crept slowly by with the numbers from his accounting logs. She would be there, with her smiles and laughter, and her energy would radiate through the room and chase the shadows from his face. Now she was gone, and all he had left of her was the ring that he wore on his pale hand.
He tipped the pitcher in front of him and refilled the glass, swallowing hard on the smooth wine to wash back the lump that had arisen in his throat. The pen had gone dry, and he dipped it in his inkwell to finish a few notes from the last chapter he had read. Once they were finished, he would finish his current book and move onto another. His notes would carry on as they must, searching for those ever elusive answers that through his cross referencing he felt he could eventually pin-point. The pattern had been there from the beginning, but it was to simple an answer for Fredrick to accept. Honor, love, and faith, he felt, could no longer sustain him. He needed something more concrete.
"Why?" He mouthed under his breath, "Just tell me where to look. Point me in the direction of something I can grasp and taste."
Anything would do. Anything was better than simply stumbling through the darkness every night vainly searching for a guiding light.
He could even make due without light he thought, "Simply give me a wall so I know that there is something out there other than me..."
"And then," he chuckled to himself, "I'd stand with one arm touching that wall, never moving for fear I'd chose the wrong way to follow. How pathetic am I?"
The humorless mirth ceased and he sat there brooding, staring at his neatly written notes with his fingers enmeshed in his hair. He glared at them accusingly, seeking for them to reveal some hidden secret writ between the lines on the yellowed parchment.
Marie had fallen ill suddenly. The doctors had claimed it was brought on by exposure during a heavy rain the previous September evening. Her skin grayed and her fever rose as he laid her in bed. She could do little more than softly moan and clench her hands at the sheets. She had sweat so profusely that those sheets had to be changed three, sometimes four times a day. She laid there, writhing in agony, for the next two months before death ended her suffering, peacefully in her sleep.
Now he wished to be with her, regardless of how or where. She had the answers now, if there were any.
"No," he thought. There had to be answers out there, he simply had to find that wall and choose which direction to go. If he walked far enough, even in the wrong direction, he was bound to come full circle. For if his studies had shown him anything, it was that eternity was as a loop. Forever simply repeats itself, and his private prison of sorrow had to be a loop as well. If he found that wall, he'd eventually make it out.
The answers are simple, and the metaphor here is clear. Whether Fredrick ever finds his wall is meaningless. If Fredrick ever found his guiding-light, he would see that there is no door.